


How To Survive A Superhero Wedding

by flawedamythyst



Series: Seduction By Winglet [13]
Category: Cabin Pressure, Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Wedding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-09-10 22:28:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 53,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8941879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flawedamythyst/pseuds/flawedamythyst
Summary: Tony and Martin get married.It's not quite as simple as it sounds. Huge thanks to 1electricpirate for betaing.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> There are 7 chapters, which will be posted one per day for the next week. Merry Christmas!

Tony's bachelor party was not the drunken bacchanal that Rhodey would have imagined if you'd asked him while he and Tony were in college.

Which wasn't to say that things wouldn't get out-of-hand, of course. Any party that Thor was invited to was always a risk on that front, not to mention Clint, Johnny Storm and Wolverine. Keeping the number of guests down to the amount that would fit in the penthouse's main lounge just meant there were fewer sane people to dilute them.

"I can't believe you're leaving the noble brotherhood of bachelors, bub," said Logan, sprawled to take up an entire sofa.

"Given how he used to go through supermodels, it's good news. Opens the supply up for others," said Johnny, coming back from the bar with what had to be at least his fourth drink and perching on the arm of Logan’s sofa. Logan growled at him but Johnny just sent him a grin.

Tony snorted. "Yeah, I haven't really done much of that since I met Martin. Or, you know, any at all."

"C'mon, you can't expect us to believe that," said Johnny. "We're all pals here; be honest. I saw the footage of you and Helga Cavellos."

"Ah Christ," said Tony, rubbing at his face. "That fucking footage. I wish I'd never gone anywhere near her."

"Ah, so you _did_ go near her," said Logan, sitting forward.

"I danced with her," said Tony. "That's it. Why the hell would I do anything more with her when I've got Martin?"

There was a wave of eye-rolls and raised eyebrows behind his back. Rhodey noticed that the guys who reacted most were the ones who had spent the least amount of time with Martin and Tony when they were together. The others might not understand what Tony saw in Martin, but they’d seen enough to know that he was completely besotted.

"Yeah, you're whipped, bub," said Logan, shaking his head sadly. "It's a hard thing to see a man brought to his knees like that."

Tony gave him a smirk. "Oh, I quite like being on my knees for Martin."

There was a general groan and Clint pinged a cocktail stick at him.

Rhodey hadn't met Martin until a good few months after Tony had casually dropped into conversation that he was seeing a guy, "But, you know me, probably won't last, we're just having a bit of fun and seeing where it goes. No biggie."

That had been a few weeks before the two of them were plastered all over the media with their arms around each other in front of the Taj Mahal, looking like the ending of the next epic gay romance movie.

Rhodey called Tony up as soon as he saw it. "No biggie?" he repeated.

"Okay, okay, maybe it's a thing," Tony said. "Don't worry, sweetcheeks, you're still my best bro."

"You realise I'm gonna need to meet him," said Rhodey. "I don't think I've ever had the chance to give the 'if you hurt him, I'll kill you' speech on your behalf."

"Ah," said Tony, slowly. "Might be best if you skipped that one for Martin. He's... Let's just say he's not particularly good at being threatened."

"I'll only threaten him gently, then," said Rhodey, thinking that any guy who was dating Iron Man should probably get used to a bit of being threatened every now and then.

When he finally met Martin, he realised exactly what Tony had meant.

"My two favourite guys in the same place," said Tony with great satisfaction after introducing them. "No offence, Cap, obviously you're my favourite super-guy and therefore in your own special category."

"I wasn't offended," said Steve. They were in the kitchen at the Tower, where Rhodey had arrived to find most of the Avengers and Martin having dinner.

"I am," said Bruce. "Are you saying I'm not in the favourite super-guy category?"

Tony threw him an exasperated look as Rhodey took a seat and started to help himself to lasagne. "You're in the science-bro category," he said. "Anyone else?" Clint cleared his throat and just got a glare. "You're not even on the list."

"Aw, man," said Clint. "I think my heart's breaking."

"At any rate," said Tony, slinging his arms around Martin and Rhodey's shoulders, "you're my two favourite pilots. And no, Clint, you're not on that list either."

"I'm gonna be drinking myself to sleep tonight," said Clint. “Weeping into my pillow. All that.”

"Pleased to meet you," Rhodey said to Martin, ignoring the banter with the ease of long experience. From the way Martin had kept quiet during it, he was clearly just as aware that waiting out the snark was the best option. "I've heard a lot about you, it'll be good to see how much of that is the usual Stark nonsense."

Tony gaped at him in faux-shock. Rhodey ignored him.

"Um. Yes, you too," said Martin. "I mean, good to meet you too, not that Tony talks nonsense about you. Well, it's Tony so he talks a certain amount of—not nonsense, no, but, you know. Talk. Which is good! I like Tony's talk about you, no, no, about everyone, not just you, that would be weird. Oh god." He gave up and rubbed a hand over his face.

Tony sniggered. "Oh Spitfire, don't take this the wrong way, but I kinda want to just keep introducing you to people so I can get that reaction every time."

Martin's shoulders slumped and he sent Tony a weak glare. "I'm sorry," he said to Rhodey, sounding defeated.

"It's cool," said Rhodey. "Just to clarify though, there's no need to be nervous of me. As long as Tony's happy, I'm happy."

That hadn’t actually been what he'd been thinking, though. He'd been wondering how Tony ended up with this guy, and what on earth he could see in him. Rhodey had seen enough of Tony's conquests to know that he pretty much always went for people who were beautiful, intelligent and confident, and Rhodey couldn't detect any of those three in Martin as dinner went on. Not that he was very good at telling when men were attractive, but he was sat around a table with several of Time's Most Eligible Bachelors, and it was pretty easy to see the gap between them and Martin.

They all went out to a bar. Tony drank more than Rhodey was happy about while talking a mile a minute about all kinds of crap, which was pretty standard. Martin hovered close to him, cradling the same drink for most of the night and only coming out with something that wasn't red-faced and stuttery when the topic turned to planes, which it seemed to do with a lot more regularity than Rhodey was used to.

Rhodey went to bed that night thinking that Tony's experiment in monogamy wasn't going to last very long, once the novelty had worn off.

He’d realised his mistake the very next morning. He'd woken up at his usual time, well aware that Tony was probably going to be in bed for at least a couple more hours, and headed down to the kitchen for coffee, thinking that he might go for a run while he was waiting for Tony to emerge.

When he heard Tony's voice coming from the kitchen, he was so surprised that for a moment he wondered if he'd somehow managed to sleep for an extra five hours without noticing.

"Maybe if I called in a bomb threat to the airport," he heard Tony say.

"If you get yourself arrested on terrorism charges, Steve's never going to let you hear the end of it," said another voice, and it took Rhodey a moment to recognise it as Martin. He sounded like a completely different person. Rhodey stopped where he was, out of sight but within eavesdropping distance.

Tony sighed. "Yeah, yeah. This living up to the standards of Captain America thing is seriously getting old."

"Not to mention that if Carolyn found out you'd delayed the flight and risked us not being able to get back in time for the Lisbon trip, even the suit wouldn't protect you," added Martin.

"Okay, that's true," said Tony. "She's pretty terrifying." He let out a long sigh, and then there was the distinctive sound of a kiss. "Just could do with a bit longer with you, is all."

"Yeah, me too," said Martin, and there was another kiss. "After all, you told me you were going to explain the changes to the tail fin of the Starkjet 6000 designs, and we haven't had time."

"Oh!" said Tony, and Rhodey didn't need to see his face to know that it had lit up. "Oh man, you're going to love it. Hang on, pass me that tablet, I can totally show you while you're eating. JARVIS, put the Starkjet 6000 design on here. Okay, look here. You know the rudder was like this before? Well, now it's more like this..."

Rhodey had heard Tony talking about various inventions a lot over the years; far more than he'd ever wanted to. He'd never heard him talk about them with that note in his voice, of not just eager enthusiasm but genuine satisfaction.

It took a few minutes of listening to Martin's responses for Rhodey to realise that this was how Tony sounded when he knew he was talking to someone who actually cared rather than someone who was just humouring him.

Now that Martin wasn't eaten up with anxiety, like Rhodey was beginning to realise he must have been last night, he came across very differently. His responses to Tony might not have matched Tony's genius, but it was clear he understood what he was talking about and cared very deeply about it.

“Wow, Tony,” he said, once the basics had been outlined. “This is incredible. It might even be better than the winglets.”

Tony laughed. “C'mon, Spitfire, we both know nothing's ever going to beat the winglets.”

“No, okay, true,” said Martin. “They're in a class of their own.”

“Much like yourself,” said Tony. Martin let out an amused noise and then there was the sound of more kissing.

Rhodey took a step or two backwards, as quietly as he could, then turned and headed for the elevator. He'd go for his run first and get coffee after, once Martin had gone, so that he wasn't intruding.

That had been nearly two and a half years ago, and now they were only three days out from Tony marrying the guy.

Jesus Christ, Tony Stark getting married. Rhodey was still finding the idea hard to get his head around, even after ten months of seeing a ring on Tony's finger and hearing increasingly long rants about the nightmare of planning it all.

“Okay, okay,” said Tony, downing his glass of fizzy grape juice. “So, here's the real question: Rhodey, where the hell are my strippers?”

“What makes you think there'll be strippers?” asked Rhodey.

Tony raised an eyebrow. “C'mon, cupcake, if I'd wanted a staid, stripper-less bachelor party, I'da made Steve my best man and we'd all be saluting the flag and eating apple pie right now.”

“Flags mean flagpoles,” Clint pointed out. “We could have got pole dancers in for that bit.”

“Maybe hidden strippers in the apple pie,” said Johnny, and got a range of bewildered expressions. “What? One giant apple pie, strippers hidden under the crust and then bursting out. Okay, maybe it would have got a bit sticky, but that just means you get to lick them clean, right?”

“Wow, that got gross pretty quickly,” said Rhodey.

“I feel I should remind everyone, and by everyone I mean Johnny, that Natasha will almost certainly find out everything that gets said and done here tonight,” said Clint.

“I figured she'd be here, actually,” said Johnny. “Don't tell me you've excluded her as a boys-only thing, and she let you?”

“Nah,” said Tony. “She was totally invited, but she's on Martin duty tonight.”

“Martin duty?” asked Logan, raising an eyebrow. “He needs a babysitter?”

“Only until the wedding,” said Clint. “Me and her are taking turns to stick with either Martin or Tony.”

“Won't wo-ork,” sang Johnny quietly, under his breath.

Clint glared at him. “It will totally work. We've got this far, haven't we?”

Johnny shook his head. “Doesn't count until they both get through their vows. That's the tricky part.”

“Clint and Natasha have a bet with Johnny,” Steve told Logan. “Johnny doesn't think Martin and Tony can make it through a wedding ceremony first time without any super-villains or evil aliens or unexpected neo-Nazis interrupting.”

Logan raised en eyebrow. “C'mon, how hard can it be? That many superheroes in one place, who would attack?”

“Do you know how many goes it took Sue and Reed?” asked Johnny. “No, you don't, and I'll tell you why. Because after the fifth attempt, most of you fuckers stopped bothering to come and by the end it was just them, me and Ben, and a minister who insisted on wearing body armour.”

“Damnit, body armour. I knew I'd left something at home,” said Rhodey.

Tony rolled his eyes. “No one is going to need body armour,” he said, and there was a chorus of groans.

“Way to jinx the whole thing, Stark,” said Logan, getting up to refill his drink.

“Don't panic, I can lend you some,” Clint said to Rhodey. “Tony won't let me put him and Martin in any, but at least the wedding party should be protected, right?”

Rhodey snorted, then realised Clint wasn't joking. O-kay. He was beginning to remember why he'd never become a full-time part of the superhero community. He caught a movement from the door and glanced over to see Pepper's head poke around the frame and give him a nod.

Right, okay. He stood up. “Time to raise your glasses, guys. To Tony's unexpected desertion of bachelorhood!”

There was a cheer and raised glasses, and Tony grinned wide. “I guess I just didn't have the moral fibre for it.”

“Apparently not,” said Rhodey. “And speaking of a lack of moral fibre...” He gestured at Pepper and the strippers came in, to a chorus of cheers and hoots. “I'd just like to remind everyone,” said Rhodey, raising his voice above the noise, “and thanks, Johnny, for making this necessary, that licking the dancers is not acceptable behaviour!”

There were three men and three women, all dressed in the sluttiest version of the Iron Man costume that they'd been able to put together. A mix of genders had seemed like the best idea for a bisexual's party, especially once Pepper had got involved and told Rhodey in no uncertain terms that if they were going to be objectifying people, it was going to be equal opportunity. As for the costumes, well, anyone who'd known Tony for longer than thirty seconds knew that his biggest turn on was himself.

Well, after Martin, obviously.

****

Steve wasn't really that keen on the strippers but he was aware that Tony would have felt short-changed if he hadn't had any at his bachelor party. It was enough that he was staying sober, although he didn't look like he minded much. Steve had watched him at enough galas, charity events and receptions to know that when Tony was craving a drink, his knuckles whitened on his glass and his smile grew increasingly plastic-looking.

None of that was happening now. He was using his glass mostly just as a prop for whatever story he was telling that involved wide arm movements, and the smile that lit up his face was completely genuine.

It was nearly two years since Steve had sat on a sofa with Thor and Clint, carefully not saying anything about the tension in every line of Tony's body or the rapidity of his breathing, or even the faint shimmer of sweat on his face.

Thor had been far too caught up with the movie to pay attention, but Steve had meet Clint's eye the fifth time Tony's gaze caught on the bar and then was ruthlessly pulled away. Clint raised an eyebrow, as if asking whether they should comment, but Steve shook his head slightly. Tony's pride wasn’t going to let him accept any help, and he'd hate to know that they were all watching him.

Tony was so out of it that he didn't even seem to notice when the movie ended. Steve had been pretty distracted from it as well, although he'd managed to get the gist, enough to add it to the list of things he understood references about which was mostly what he wanted out of their movie nights anyway.

Thor had probably been paying enough attention for all of them. Tears were in his eyes as he said, “My friends, this was a valiant tale. I thank you for sharing it with me.”

Clint patted his shoulder. “No problem, big guy. Just, you know, please don't cover yourself in blue warpaint, yeah?”

Steve could picture that all too well, as well as the media reaction to it.

“It was a heroic look but I do not feel it would suit me,” said Thor, which was an enormous relief. “Friend Tony, you are strangely silent and oddly pale. Did you not enjoy the tale?”

“I'm fine,” said Tony, with a smile that Steve didn't believe for a second. “Just tired.”

They all went off to bed not long after that but Steve couldn't get to sleep. Instead, he sat on his bed, feeling useless. If only there was something he could do that wouldn't make Tony clam up and deny ever needing any help.

There was one person that Tony always felt comfortable relying on, of course, and luckily, Steve had access to him.

"JARVIS, how's Tony?" he asked.

There was a telling pause. "Sir is currently taking a bath whilst watching a movie that was one of his favourites when he was a child. I believe it is having a relaxing effect on him."

Steve nodded to himself. "Okay," he said. "Will you let me know if you think he could do with a distraction? I don't mind knocking on his door and pretending I need something."

"I will bear that in mind and let you know if I feel it becomes necessary," said JARVIS. He was silent, then added, "Thank you, Captain Rogers."

It was little things like the tone JARVIS used to say that which made it difficult for Steve to remember that JARVIS was nothing more than programming. It wasn't just that he had a personality, it was that he seemed to genuinely care for Tony and look out for his welfare in a way that surely must go beyond mere computer code.

Steve went to bed, but wasn't able to sleep. He found himself staring at the ceiling, thinking about the fact that he hadn't ever spent an evening with Tony without seeing a glass in his hand at least once. Whatever had happened in England to make him take the decision to finally stop had to have been huge. Steve knew that he wasn't the only Avenger to try and have a quiet word with him about maybe cutting down a bit, not that he'd got very far with any of those little talks. He didn’t think anyone else had either, not even Rhodey and Pepper, guys Tony had known for years and who he was more likely to listen to. Tony just always laughed the whole thing off and walked away without even letting them finish.

Had Martin said something? Or had flying across the Atlantic while drunk been enough for Tony to confront his own behaviour?

The idea of Martin finding enough courage to talk to Tony seemed unlikely, given that even after over a year of knowing Steve, he still froze up if he had to talk to him without Tony next to him, and tended to call him 'Cap, um, Steve', which Steve was beginning to think he was going to just have to accept as a nickname.

But then, Steve had long ago realised that the Martin Tony got to see was very different from the one that appeared in front of the other Avengers.

Over the next few days, Steve kept as close an eye on Tony as he could manage without making Tony go on a rant about mother hens. He seemed to be doing much better than Steve would have thought a guy going cold turkey alone would do for a first attempt, but then Tony had never suffered from a lack of willpower.

It was only when Martin arrived that Steve noticed a crack in Tony's armour.

He was sat on the balcony with his sketchpad, trying to get the shape of the clouds right, when they got back from the airport. Tony had his arm around Martin as he hustled him out of the elevator, but it looked less like he was trying to get him into bedroom as fast as possible, like he normally did, and more like he was just clinging on for dear life.

“Is anyone else around?” asked Martin, glancing around the room but not spotting Steve outside.

“Probably,” said Tony. “Doesn't matter, you won’t be seeing anyone else once you're in my bed. Come on, come on.”

“You know, I remember when you used to try and seduce me into bed rather than just railroading me there,” said Martin, but he was smiling as he said it, and heading for the stairs up to the bedrooms almost as quickly as Tony clearly wanted him to.

“This is just a different kind of seduction,” said Tony, pushing Martin up the stairs. “This is you being flattered by how desperate I am to get you there. Right?”

Martin paused halfway up the stairs to kiss him. “Something like that,” he said. “I'm definitely not intending to go anywhere else.”

Steve was already feeling pretty bad about watching them, but the look that came over Tony's face then made him feel like a peeping Tom. It was as if the mask he'd been wearing for the whole week just fell away, leaving behind nothing but exhaustion and a manic-edged desperation.

“Am I going to lose billionaire playboy points if I admit that the sex is actually only secondary in my motivations?” he asked, his fingers tightening on Martin's shoulder. “I just want to have you in my arms, Spitfire. It's been a really shitty week. And a bad few months before that.”

Martin stroked a hand over his face, then turned and started decisively back up the stairs. “Then let's get there as soon as possible, so we can do both.”

“Definitely,” said Tony, chasing after him.

If Tony was finding it that hard to avoid alcohol, thought Steve, was he going to be able to keep it up? Especially if the only person he was letting himself lean on wasn't even in the same country most of the time?

Steve hadn't thought then that they'd get to this point, nearly two years later, and Tony would still be sober without any relapses.

But then, Steve wouldn't have thought he'd be marrying Martin either. Or marrying anyone. Of course, he’d thought that about Howard, back in the day, and been proved wrong there as well. Maybe he should stop making predictions about his friends' chances of matrimony.

"C'mon, Cap, stop looking so glum!" said Tony. "It's a party. And you don't even get to play the sober-is-boring card, cuz I'm right there with you and having a great time."

Steve smiled at him. "Maybe I'm just wondering how Martin would feel about you having strippers.”

Tony snorted. "You're kidding, right? He'd be fine with it. We have an open and adult relationship, in which we're both allowed to appreciate other people's assets. Sometimes we appreciate them together, as a kind of bonding thing. I know we've both appreciated the hell out of your assets in the past," he added, and gave Steve a leer.

Steve did his best to keep the blush off his face, but apparently his best wasn't good enough because Tony cracked up.

****

Tony might be a tiny bit biased, but he was pretty sure that his bachelor party was the best damn bachelor party anyone had ever had. Rhodey had got him strippers, Pepper had allowed Rhodey to get him strippers, Logan had agreed not to smoke his vile cigars inside the penthouse, and someone had managed to find a metal cover of _The Star-Spangled Man_ , which had to be just about the greatest thing Tony had ever heard, and had made Steve look like he wanted to fall through the floor, which was like a special present all on its own.

Even without a drink in his hand—a proper drink—Tony was having an excellent time. He settled on the sofa that Clint was perched on the back of, explaining The Travelling Lemon to Johnny, Logan and Hank McCoy, in front of one of the more flexible strippers who was showing off her skills at pole-dancing.

"Sounds like just the thing to make invigilating finals more interesting," said Hank. “I’m pretty sure I hate exams almost as much as the kids do.”

"Did Martin tell you about that?" Tony asked Clint, eyes tracking the stripper as she flipped around the pole.

Clint shook his head. "Nah, I caught Douglas and Carolyn playing it that time we all caught a lift home with MJN after AIM trashed most of SHIELD's jets."

"Ah, yeah," said Tony. "Seriously though, don't let Spitfire hear you talking about it. He's got a kinda personal grudge against it."

Clint shrugged. "Just seemed like a good way to get through one of SHIELD's mandatory training sessions without losing all my marbles, although I haven't yet managed to talk Natasha into it."

Johnny laughed. "Good lu—"

"HAIL HYDRA!" shouted the stripper, pulling a gun out of— Out of somewhere. Tony had no idea where from, perhaps she had access to some kind of pocket dimension.

She started firing and several things happened at once. Clint threw himself at Tony, tackling him to the floor and shielding him with his body as two of the other strippers screamed. There was a metallic snick from Wolverine, a whoosh of flame from Johnny and a shattering crash from where Bruce had been pouring himself another drink but was now three times the size and a whole lot more green. Mjolnir hit the woman's stomach, Cap's shield hit her in the face and the blinding red line of Cyclops's vision cut through the top of the pole she'd been dancing on.

Tony lay still for a moment, trying to get air back into his lungs under the full weight of Clint's body.

"Attacking a party full of superheroes, bub?" he heard Logan say. "That's got to be the worst idea since Scott's last hair cut."

Tony pushed at Clint in an attempt to get up, but Clint just clung on tighter, keeping him down.

"Okay, this is nice and all, but I need to get up now," said Tony.

"Not until the threat is contained," said Clint, resting his weight on Tony's shoulders as he looked up, watching as Logan kicked the gun away and Hank crouched over the stripper, who looked very unconscious and maybe a little bit dead.

"Get her out of here," snapped Steve, striding forward in full Captain mode. "Scott, Ben, get the other dancers out of here and confine them until we can be sure they're not involved. Thor, can you stop Hulk from getting mad and trashing everything?"

"JARVIS, what's the security report?" asked Tony, giving up on getting free and settling back onto the carpet. "Where's Spitfire?"

"There are no other security alerts," said JARVIS. "There are no unauthorised persons in any part of the Tower and I have run a check on all authorised persons and pinpointed no cause for alarm. Captain Crieff is currently in his room with Agent Romanov. Do you want me to appraise them of the situation?"

Tony hesitated. It was tempting to just leave Martin in ignorance rather than upsetting him, but both he and Natasha would be seriously pissed if they found out afterwards that they'd been kept in the dark. Plus, it would put Natasha on high alert in case there was another attack that Martin was caught up in.

"Yeah, go ahead," he said. "Highlight how completely not hurt everyone is, yeah? Well, except for the crush injuries I'm getting from Clint's fat ass."

"Screw you, my ass is fantastic," said Clint, and then finally climbed off Tony, glancing around the room as if Hydra agents were about to come out of the walls.

"It's pretty over-protective," said Tony, sitting up and looking around. The shooter was being carried out and the other strippers were all being led away, looking terrified. Hulk was crouched in a corner, glaring out at the room while Thor tried to talk him back down into Bruce. Tony could see the splintered remains of a table next to him, but if he'd only lost one piece of furniture, that was pretty good going.

Clint glared at him. "I'm not letting you get shot by a neo-fascist stripper, not until after the wedding, anyway."

"I see how it is," said Tony. "Once I'm a married man, you're perfectly happy to see me assassinated."

Clint shrugged. "Pretty much."

"Tony!" shouted a voice, and Tony looked up to see Martin pelting down the staircase with Natasha a step behind him, gun in her hand and a hard look in her eye.

"Chill, Nat, I had it," said Clint. "Not even a scratch on him."

"Hey, Spitfire!" said Tony, grinning at him. Martin headed straight for him and wrapped his arms around Tony, squeezing him tightly. Tony clung on just as much back, hoping it was reassuring. It was certainly making him feel better, but then, hugging Martin always did.

"I don't care about scratches," said Natasha, " but if we lose this bet because of you, Barton..."

"Please don't get shot," said Martin, and Tony tuned out the bickering in favour of pressing a kiss to his forehead.

"Right back atcha," he said, and took a moment to really enjoy having Martin in his arms. Somehow, that never seemed to get old.

In three days, it would be both their wedding day and the third anniversary of the day he'd tried to take a nap in Mafikeng airport and been disturbed by the only two pilots in the place who'd managed to find their way to the pilot's lounge. It felt like both a lifetime and a mere eye-blink since then.

He’d been three quarters of the way to falling asleep when he heard voices outside the door of the shabby room that Mafikeng Airport claimed was a pilot's lounge.

“This must be it."

“Either that, or we've found the only toilet in the world capable of flight."

The door opened and Tony did his very best _Sleeping Genius — Do Not Disturb_ impression. If he was very lucky, they'd be quiet enough for him to get the rest of the way to asleep.

“Well, this will do for a couple of hours,” said one of the voices. It sounded younger than the other one. “Does he look familiar to you?”

Tony tried not to feel vaguely insulted that he hadn't been instantly recognised. He was wearing sunglasses after all, and most people didn't expect to find internationally famed billionaire superheroes asleep on an airport sofa.

“No doubt we've run into him at some other airport sometime,” said the other voice dismissively. It sounded like it was pretty practised at being dismissive.

“No, I don't think he's a pilot," said the first voice. "He looks more like a celebrity. I think I've seen him in the papers.” Tony decided he liked this guy better than the other one, even if he usually objected to being called a 'celebrity'. These days any loser on a reality show was called a celebrity.

“Oh god, let's not have a repeat of your attempts to talk to Hester Macaulay," said the second voice. "That was like watching a baby seal being clubbed to death with a stiletto."

Okay, that was an interesting mental image, but not something Tony would rule out Hester Macaulay doing. He'd been trapped in a green room at some talk show with her a few years ago. It wasn't often his wasn't the largest ego in the room.

“Do you have any Rand on you?” asked the second voice.

There was the chink of coins being dug out of a pocket. “I wasn't that bad,” the first voice claimed. Tony found himself picturing the owner as a sort of human baby seal, with wide dark eyes and a woeful expression. He had a feeling it had been exactly as bad as the other man made out. “Besides, she was awful—I can't imagine that all celebrities are like that.”

Tony thought about the self-important egotistical bastards that he'd run away from in the VIP lounge and thought it was probably a good thing that Baby Seal didn't have access to it.

“I bet they are,” said the second voice. “It's irrelevant however, as he can't possibly be a celebrity." It sounded completely dismissive of Baby Seal, as if nothing he said could prove to be right. Tony felt a surge of protectiveness, which was probably a sign he shouldn't conflate cute baby animals and random guys he didn't even know.

"Even if any celebrity would deign to come to this rathole of an airport, there's almost certainly a VIP lounge here, and it's bound to be much nicer than this one,” continued the second voice.

Tony really wanted to prove him wrong. Eh, he clearly wasn't going to be getting any sleep now anyway, and if he 'woke up', he'd get to find out what Baby Seal really looked like. Hopefully that would wipe out Tony's desire to wrap him up in a blanket and smoosh him.

“Yes, but it's full of people like Hester Macaulay,” he said, sitting up and taking off his sunglasses to get a good view.

Ah crap, Baby Seal was both attractive and wearing a startled expression that widened his eyes and made him look as much like a baby seal as was probably going to be possible for a ginger guy.

A ginger guy with freckles. Oh, those were good. Tony wondered how much of his skin they covered.

“Oh,” breathed Baby Seal in a way that wouldn't have been out of place just before an orgasm. “You're Tony Stark.”

“Guilty,” said Tony, wondering how hard it would be to actually find out what he sounded like just before an orgasm. Did they have time for a quickie before the storm passed over?

Well yeah, obviously. Better question: did Tony have time to seduce him before then? That one kinda depended on how straight he was, how single he was, and how susceptible he was to insanely good-looking billionaire superheroes.

The last one was probably not going to be a problem either. It never really was. Tony hooked his sunglasses on his breast pocket and gave his best smirk.

“Oh,” Baby Seal said in a wobbly voice, sinking into the seat behind him as if his legs couldn't hold him up any more. “You designed the Starkjet 4000.”

Okay, that wasn't usually the first of his achievements people went for, but Tony could run with it. It was kinda nice to have his engineering genius recognised before his pots of cash or some of the antics he'd been in the press for.

“I designed parts of it. The best parts. I let some of my engineers mess about with the boring stuff.” Credit where credit’s due, right?

“You changed the way the industry uses winglets,” said Baby Seal and, wow, Tony had never heard anyone say 'winglets' in that tone of voice, like they were a revelation from God.

“Yeah, that's true,” Tony agreed, wondering if he should have guessed that a pilot would be more excited about aviation technology than anything else. The other pilot didn't look excited about it though—he was too busy giving Baby Seal a condescending look.

Tony glanced at their uniforms. Apparently Baby Seal was Captain Baby Seal, despite being younger and, uh, more excitable than First Mate Condescension.

“And you're Iron Man,” added Baby Seal. Ah, there they were, more familiar ground. “You can fly around the globe!" Though, apparently still focussing on the aviation side of things. "Without an aeroplane, I mean, we can fly around the globe but only in GERTI, and that's not the same at all. What's it like, flying like that? Nothing but you and the sky?”

Okay, the excited babbling was really adorable. Tony wondered if it was possible to get him to do that during sex. Excited sex babbling would be awesome.

“It's pretty awesome,” said Tony, grinning at him.

The machine dispensed a cup and the other pilot picked it up, then turned around. “You'll have to forgive Captain Fanboy here. He wanted to be an aeroplane when he was younger.”

Tony raised an eyebrow at Baby Seal. “Did you?”

He blushed. Oh man, that was even better than the babbling, that was seriously hot. “When I was very, very young.”

“I wanted to be a Ferrari for a bit," admitted Tony. "Until I worked out that I wouldn't be able to build things if I was a car. And then I grew up and built a suit than can go several times faster than any Ferrari could ever hope for,” he added, unable to keep in the grin that happened whenever he remembered that he had a super-awesome flying suit.

Baby Seal let out a faintly nervous laugh. “Yeah, that's really amazing. And it looks far more manoeuvrable as well.”

“It is,” said Tony. “You can get it to do almost anything.” He held off on waggling his eyebrows, but the tone of his voice should have been enough to get the innuendo across. Time to find out just how receptive Baby Seal was going to be to finding somewhere quiet for a bit of nookie in the next couple of hours.

Baby Seal either didn't notice the innuendo or took it in his stride, because he pressed on with the conversation without any reaction. “Surely you could just use it to fly home from here, then? I mean, I've seen clips of it flying through a lot worse conditions than this storm.”

“You would not believe how upset US Customs gets when I enter the country in it,” said Tony. “Especially if I've left on a jet. Apparently just going home is akin to serial killing.”

“Oh yes, they are a bit touchy, aren't they?” Now that was a sentence with a story behind it.

“Particularly if you threaten to destroy an aeroplane with an axe,” said the first mate, sitting down on a sofa. And there was the story. Tony didn't bother looking away from Baby Seal to acknowledge him. There were far more pressing matters to attend to, like how much aviation innuendo he could pull out of his ass.

“Okay then,” he said, leaning forward to focus his attention on Baby Seal. And, okay, he really was going to need a new nickname if he was going to sleep with the guy. Baby seals were great, but not exactly sex objects. “This is a hundred percent dead serious question, on which I will be judging your entire personality. Which kind of airplane did you want to be when you were a kid?”

“A Spitfire,” he said, without hesitation. He must have put a lot of thought into it to be so certain.

Tony grinned. “Oh, good choice.” And there was the new nickname. Captain Spitfire was way sexier than Baby Seal, and matched up with the ginger hair nicely.

“I'm not sure I'd say the same now. I was only young, I didn't know that many kinds of planes then," said Spitfire with a shrug. "Spitfires just always looked really cool in the films my dad used to watch.”

That was fair enough. Tony wasn't sure that he'd be able to narrow it down to just one kind of plane either. Unless the Iron Man suit counted as a plane which, okay, probably not.

“So what would you go for now?” he asked. “And I'll totally cry if it's not the Starkjet. No, I'm kidding, you can pick anything you want. As long as it's made by Stark Industries.”

If he said anything made by Hammertech, Tony was going to just walk out. However sexy a guy was, Tony had some limits.

“I don't know, really," said Spitfire, contemplatively. "The Starkjet is amazing, but is it too obvious?” He frowned, clearly giving the question the level of attention it deserved, then glanced over at his first mate. “What would you go for?”

“I wouldn't,” he said firmly. “Why would anyone want to be a plane? Think of all the things you'd miss out on.”

Spitfire rolled his eyes. “You'll have to forgive my First Officer,” he said. “He became a pilot for the stewardesses.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” said Tony, thinking back to when he could get away with stripper poles on his private jet. Mind you, that was before Pepper had pointed out how gross and creepy it was, and that it was only going to get grosser and creepier the older Tony got. “Perfectly acceptable reason to do anything.”

That said, it seemed weird that you'd work in aviation and not have an answer to that question. Tony had only been thinking about it for five minutes, and he already had a whole bunch of planes he'd consider being. There were a lot of awesome choices. “I'd probably have to say an F-16.”

“Oh, yes,” said Spitfire. “Good one. Not sure I'd want to be a fighter, though.”

Yeah, he kinda looked more like a lover than fighter. Which Tony wasn't going to complain about, especially not if he could get him to be _his_ lover.

“Nothing is more fun than blowing shit up," said Tony, which he kinda wanted to put on his grave. He'd text Pepper about it later.

“Maybe a Cessna,” mused Spitfire. Tony ran through a mental list of Cessna's, and decided he must mean a Skymaster. They were compact, great for civilian use and handled a bit differently from other planes. For a moment Tony considered changing his mental nickname to Captain Skymaster, but it kinda sounded like a bad aviation porno. He only wanted this to be a good aviation porno.

Which it looked like it was going to be, if the way Spitfire was leaning in towards Tony as they debated the pros and cons of various planes was anything to go by. Oh yeah, this was going to be sweet.


	2. Chapter 2

Martin was awake first, which he'd been expecting given the time Tony had come to bed. Anyone else would have abandoned the bachelor party after a shooting, but when the majority of the guests were superheroes, it would take a bit more than that to stop the revelries—like an alien invasion or something.

Actually, given it was Tony's party, Martin had a feeling even that wouldn't have been allowed to stop it.

He left Tony sleeping and went through to his room to put the coffee machine on. It felt like there should be things for him to do for the wedding, but the truth was that everything was as ready as it could be right now. MJN were flying in with Martin's family and other Martin and his wife around lunchtime, and Martin didn't have much to do until then.

He poured himself a cup of coffee and settled on the sofa. "JARVIS, what's the weather over the Atlantic?"

"Clear skies and light winds," said JARVIS. "I can see no delays for the MJN flight."

"Okay, great," said Martin. He rested his head back and watched a Learjet go overhead. Having a window so high up in the sky was probably his favourite thing about this room.

Well, no, his favourite thing about this room was that Tony had designed it for him, and had made it _perfect_.

Tony was possibly the only person who had ever actively indulged Martin's love of aviation, certainly since he became old enough for it to be considered rather childish. Most people were pretty obvious about the fact that they thought it was ridiculous, a handful were tolerant of it, but only Tony ever went out of his way to incorporate it into the things they did together with as much enthusiasm as if he was the one who'd memorised the Spitfire Mk IV's pilot's manual by the time he was 13.

Martin could remember the first time he properly realised that. It was their second official date, the fifth time they'd met up, back when Martin was still trying to believe that he was actually dating Tony Stark.

“We’re having a picnic,” Tony announced as the limo pulled away from Dulles airport, where MJN had just landed. He cracked open a bottle of champagne and grinned at Martin.

Martin hesitated. ‘Picnic’ conjured up images of family holidays spent cowering on a Welsh beach in the half an hour between bouts of drizzle, trying to pretend he was having a good time and occasionally being attacked by wasps.

“Oh no, don’t look like that,” said Tony, handing him a glass. “It’s a sunny day, I’ve got all kinds of epic food, and you’re going to love where we’re headed. Seriously, I can’t wait to see your face.”

Martin reminded himself that Tony was very different from his parents and that if he wasn’t having a good time he wouldn’t force him to stay, and took the glass. “Please don’t tell me you own a forest or a park or something in the area.”

“Nope, nothing like that,” said Tony. “We’re gonna be surrounded by the general public in fact, if you think you can cope with that.”

“I’ll do my very best,” said Martin, then gave a sniff. “I might not be able to hold in my disdain, though.”

Tony laughed. “Oh, I’d never ask you to. Can’t have you pretending to be just one of the plebs.”

Martin gave as regal a nod as he could manage, and took a sip of champagne.

It was just under an hour later that they pulled up. Tony ducked his head to glance out the window and gave a grin. “Oh yeah, you’re going to love this.”

There was a familiar whoosh from overhead and Martin threw open the car door to see a Boeing 747 fly over, heading up into the sky.

“Oh, wow!” he breathed, glancing around. They were outside a park that was right next to Ronald Reagan Airport, perfectly placed at the end of the runway so that the planes took off over them, close enough to see every detail. “Fantastic!”

Another plane came over and he watched it pass, then turned to grin at Tony.

The look on Tony’s face was pure pleasure at Martin’s joy, and Martin realised that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had someone beside him who was just as pleased by something aviation-related as he was.

“And I even got them to cut your sandwiches into aeroplane shapes,” added Tony. “Am I good, or am I good?”

“You’re the best,” said Martin, meaning it with every part of his heart.

And that was only the first time Tony had encouraged Martin’s love of aviation. Going to Duxford and getting to share one of his favourite places with Tony, not to mention the show itself, still counted as one of Martin’s best memories, even though he’d spent a lot of the day stressed about Tony finding out about his financial problems.

Tony came out of the bedroom as Martin was starting his second cup of coffee, so Martin poured him one as well.

Tony took it with a slightly bleary, “Thank you.”

“I didn't think you'd be up for a while,” said Martin as they settled down on the sofa together.

Tony gave a shrug. “I figured I’d get some workshop time in today, before the place fills up with Brits and I’m having to make tea every hour on the hour. Ah, don't give me that look, I’ll make sure you get coffee instead.”

“As much as I love coffee, I’m pretty sure a cup an hour would only end badly,” said Martin. “Especially when I’m already a bit tense.”

“Tense? What the hell have you got to be tense about?” asked Tony. “You’re marrying a rich sexy superhero who thinks you're the bee’s knees.”

“Right,” agreed Martin, because he actually wasn't nervous about that bit at all. Marrying Tony felt like the easiest thing he’d ever done. “But before I get to do that, I have to deal with my family interacting with— Well, with everyone else. My mum meeting Clint. Simon meeting… Well, everyone. Oh god.” He had horrible images of Simon saying the wrong thing to Natasha and being stabbed.

“Ah, it’ll be fine,” said Tony, waving a relaxed hand as if he could just make it be fine by saying it. “But, hey, speaking of the Crieff masses, Pepper’s told me we need to finally make a decision on this surname thing by the time they get here.”

Martin groaned and let his head fall against the back of the sofa. They’d been going back and forth on the question of their married surnames since a couple of weeks after Martin had proposed, and yet they didn’t seem to be anywhere near a decision.

“Right, okay,” he said. “Where did we get to?”

“Last I remember, we got caught up in the entirely stupid names you can make by portmanteauing ours,” said Tony. “Crark. Marony.”

Martin nodded, remembering. “And then you spent ten minutes advocating for ‘Spitfire’.”

Tony grinned. “Oh yeah, I remember. And then we got distracted.”

By which he meant that, when he’d been unable to persuade Martin with words, he’d tackled him and tried to use other methods. Every single time they’d discussed it so far, they’d ended up stalling somehow and then just had sex instead.

“Pepper needs to know by lunchtime?” Martin asked.

Tony nodded. “Afraid so. JARVIS, throw up the current list for me, will you?”

A list lit up on the wall.

_Tony Stark and Martin Crieff_   
_Tony and Martin Stark_   
_Tony and Martin Crieff_   
_Tony and Martin Stark-Crieff_   
_Tony and Martin Crieff-Stark_   
_Tony and Martin Crark_   
_Tony and Martin Stieff_   
_Tony and Martin…_

“Stop there,” said Martin. “JARVIS, take off all the ones below Crieff-Stark.”

“Aw, come on, we didn’t even get as far as Stierk-Crarff,” protested Tony.

“I’m not taking any name that sounds like we were just pulling letters out of a Scrabble bag,” said Martin, firmly.

“No fun,” said Tony, staring at the list. “Man, I feel like this should be an exciting and, I don’t know, couple-y decision, but I think we took too long with it and it’s now just a drag.”

“All the more reason to get it done,” said Martin. He stared at the list. “Right, well, which can we immediately eliminate?”

“I want the same surname as you,” said Tony. “Leaving our names as they are feels like, I don’t know, a cop-out of some kind.”

“Yeah,” agreed Martin. “I want to be your family, it makes sense to have the same name.”

That earned him a kiss from Tony. “Family. I like the sound of that. JARVIS, take that one off.”

The top line of writing vanished.

“Awesome,” said Tony. “One down. You got any you can take off?”

Martin stared at the list. “Well, um,” he started, and then hesitated. “It’s— Well. About Stark.”

Tony reached out and took his hand. “Just say it. I promise not to be offended.”

“It’s nothing wrong with Stark,” said Martin, quickly. “It’s a good surname. Very strong. Just, um. I don’t want to completely abandon Crieff. I don’t think— Well, I mean, he’d never have said, but I don’t think my dad would have liked it if I’d stopped being a Crieff.”

Tony nodded. “Okay, that’s cool. JARVIS, take out the Stark only line as well. That leaves us with three, we’re doing pretty well.” He grinned. “You know, my dad would turn in his grave if I abandoned the Stark name, that’s almost enough incentive to do it on its own.”

“No,” said Martin. “Nope, you can’t not be a Stark. Don’t be stupid. ‘Tony Stark’ is as much a brand as Stark Industries.”

Tony shrugged. “I bet I could make Tony Crieff a brand as well, given a bit of time.”

Martin shook his head. “No.” It just sounded wrong for Tony to not have Stark attached to him.

“It would make my initials TEC,” mused Tony. “Oh man, I could start calling myself High-TEC.”

“Everyone would think you were perpetually stoned,” said Martin. “Besides, your initials would be AEC, not TEC, and—” he played his trump card, “—I bet Pepper would say you need to stay at least a little bit Stark.”

Tony made a face. “She could always become a Stark instead.” Martin gave him a look and Tony sighed. “Yeah, okay, point made. I guess I’ve named too much stuff after myself to go changing my name now. Plus, I get enough ‘Good Crieff’ from Rhodey just for dating you, I’m not sure I can cope with how much I’d get if it was my name too.”

“So, we’re down to the hyphenated ones,” said Martin as JARVIS took off the Stark line as well.

“Yeah,” agreed Tony, sounding about as enthused as Martin felt. Hyphenated names just felt a bit too pretentious, as if he was about to start pronouncing Bucket ‘Bouquet’.

“We still have the option of ‘Crark’,” said Tony.

“No,” Martin vetoed, then leaned back into Tony’s side to soften the rejection. “Come on, just two options. Which sounds better? Crieff-Stark or Stark-Crieff?”

Tony took a deep breath and stared at the names on the wall. “Oh man. This is a lot of pressure.”

“I know,” said Martin. “We’ll be using these names for the rest of our lives.” A thought struck him. “I’ll need a new signature.”

“You want to go with Crieff-Stark then, so you just have to shove a Stark at the end?” asked Tony.

Martin hesitated. “Crieff-Stark,” he said. “Stark-Crieff. Does having the two K sounds together in the middle make it work better?”

“God, I don’t know,” said Tony. “I guess so.”

Martin let out a sigh and then turned to bury his face in Tony’s shoulder. “I’m remembering why it’s taken us nine months to make a decision on this.”

Tony put his hand on Martin’s hair and gently ruffled it. “C’mon, we made the flowers decision, and the menu choices, and even did the seating chart—” Martin groaned at the reminder of the hell that was the seating chart, “—we can manage this as well.”

“Flowers were easy,” Martin pointed out. They were having the same red and yellow tulips that Pepper had once commissioned MJN to fly from Amsterdam to New York when Tony had been injured and Martin had been trying to work out if getting serious with Iron Man was a good idea.

(It had turned out to be the best idea.)

Tony shrugged. “Yeah, okay, not a good example.” He curved his hand around Martin’s head and lifted it so that he could kiss him. “C’mon, Spitfire. Who do you want to be? Martin Stark-Crieff? Martin Crieff-Stark?”

Martin let out a long sigh. “I just want to be the guy married to you,” he said, which felt a bit too soppy right up until the pleased, affectionate look broke over Tony’s face.

“No fear, that one’s pretty much in the bag,” said Tony. “Even if this wedding gets messed around with like Johnny’s convinced it will, we’ll get there. I don’t mind attempting a ceremony every week until we get through one.”

“I do,” said Martin. “And I’m pretty sure my mother would as well.”

Tony shrugged. “Yeah, okay. We’ll do our best to get it done on the first go, then. Which means we need a name to call ourselves afterwards…”

Martin sighed. “Okay, okay. Fine.” He ran through the sound of the choices one last time. “Stark-Crieff, then. It sounds stronger.” Martin Stark-Crieff. He realised he was getting the kind of name that sounded like a proper pilot, a der-der DER-der-der name. Well, a der-der DER-der name, anyway, which seemed close enough.

“Tony Stark-Crieff,” said Tony, and grinned. “Oh yeah, that’s worth rebranding for.” He kissed Martin again. “And now we’ve made a decision, we can move on to other things,” he added, stroking his thumb over Martin’s cheek and moving in for a longer, more serious kiss.

****

Having some of the X-Men staying overnight in the wake of Tony's bachelor party meant that breakfast got a bit out of hand, but it also meant that Hank made pancakes for everyone. Bruce tucked into his second plate of them, wondering if there was some way of persuading Hank to transfer to the Avengers so that they could have pancakes every morning.

There were probably some sort of superhero agency ethics that meant you couldn’t go poaching members from other teams just for their culinary skills.

Natasha walked into the kitchen, gave Bruce a brief nod, gently placed a lemon on top of the fridge, then poured herself a mug of coffee and left again. No one in the room even blinked.

“Are we heading straight back to Westchester after this?” Scott asked the others as he poured syrup over his plate. “There's nothing else we need to hang about for, right?”

Bruce nodded. “I don't think there's anything for you guys until the ceremony now. Martin’s family and friends are arriving from England today and he’s having his bachelor party tonight, which the Avengers are all going to. Well, except Tony.”

“He told me such a thing is called a Stag Do in his land,” said Thor. “I am greatly looking forward to the chance to hunt a mighty beast!”

Bruce rubbed at his forehead. “There are no actual stags involved,” he said. The disappointment on Thor’s face made him feel even more like a monster than he usually did.

Clint wandered in, gave everyone a vague smile and poured himself some coffee, then stood back and just observed the whole room with a narrow-eyed stare.

“Morning,” said Bruce, and got a distracted nod. A moment later, Clint’s face lit up and he reached out for the lemon.

“Is that just going on until Sunday now?” asked Logan.

“Yup,” said Clint, sliding the lemon into his pocket. “Don’t tell Martin.”

“Don’t tell Martin what?” asked Martin from the doorway. The atmosphere in the room turned very tense for a moment, then Clint gave him a wide grin.

“Don’t tell Martin about my crazy plans for the party tonight,” he said.

Martin gave him a worried look. “You remember that my brother’s going to be there? And some of my work colleagues?”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s gonna be totally fine,” said Clint, blithely. “Nothing but fun and frolics, I promise. C’mon, you trusted me with this, I wouldn’t let you down.”

“Right,” said Martin uncertainly, which just proved that he knew Clint too well, in Bruce’s opinion. 

Martin glanced around at the rest of the room and his face took on the expression Bruce had come to know as ‘I was just doing some everyday thing and now there are superheroes everywhere and I’m quietly freaking out.’ He’d seen it a lot when Martin had first started going out with Tony but it had faded once he’d got to know the Avengers. Apparently the sudden influx of superheroes from other teams was enough to set it off again.

“Have some pancakes,” said Bruce, pushing out the chair next to him.

Martin took a deep breath and nodded, coming inside the kitchen and sitting down as if he was heading to his own execution. Clint took advantage of his distraction to disappear with the lemon, presumably to hide it somewhere else.

Martin had also looked absolutely terrified the very first time Bruce had had a meal with him. It had been the evening of the first time Martin had come to the Tower, the first time any of the other Avengers had met him.

It had been Bruce's night to cook, so he'd sent Steve down to the workshop to find out if Tony and his friend were eating, but Steve only come back with one of them, and not the one Bruce had been expecting.

Martin shook Bruce’s hand with a look of such fear that Bruce was a bit worried he was going to have a heart attack. How was this the mysterious guy that Tony was so enamoured with that he’d kept him locked up in his workshop all day? He wasn’t even particularly good-looking, at least not by Tony’s movie star standards.

The fact remained that he had to be special or Tony wouldn’t have let him anywhere near the workshop, and he definitely wouldn’t be having dinner with the team. Tony had no interest in keeping the people he spent a casual night with around once he’d finished having sex with them. Tony must see more to this guy than Bruce did right now, which meant he’d somehow wormed his way under at least one or two layers of Tony’s emotional armour.

“Five of us eating then?” said Clint, opening a cupboard and pulling plates out. Bruce turned back to his curry, catching Clint’s eye as he did so. It looked as if they were thinking similar things.

“Yeah,” said Steve. “Tony's just talking to Miss Potts.” That could take anywhere from thirty seconds to four hours. Bruce found himself thinking that he wouldn’t be too long because of Martin, and forced himself to remember that this was Tony, who was perfectly capable of forgetting that he had a guest and just wandering off for the rest of the night.

Clint sniggered. “Being yelled at, you mean. I swear, I had no idea that being a multi-billionaire involved so many people telling you off.”

“I suspect that's less about being a multi-billionaire and more about being Tony,” said Bruce. He turned towards the sink with the rice, which made Martin flinch backwards as if he was about to storm Harlem. Right, okay, of course the guy was scared of Bruce hulking out. Most normal people would be.

That was maybe a bit good. If Martin was scared of Tony's friends, then maybe he'd think before taking advantage of whatever vulnerability Tony had allowed himself to have with him. The last thing Bruce wanted was for this to end with Tony going all quiet and bitter like he did when someone he cared about hurt him, as if he should have expected it all along.

Bruce really hated it when Tony got like that. If Martin turned out to be just another in a long line of people screwing Tony over, maybe he would let the other guy out and give him a bit of a scare.

Tony wandered back into the room, still talking on the phone, but his eyes searched Martin out immediately. That was very interesting. Bruce wondered if Tony had realised just how smitten he was already.

“No, Pep, seriously, it's— Oh, come on, seriously? That project is dead until they can show me how they intend to break the laws of physics without sending the budget through the roof.”

Martin smiled back at Tony’s look but it seemed half-hearted. Bruce glanced over at Clint and raised an eyebrow, and got a nod in response. It seemed like he wasn’t the only one worrying about Tony getting his feelings bruised.

Tony put his hand over the phone. “You guys start without me, I'll be back in a minute.” He didn't wait for a reply before he started talking down the phone again. “Really? Seriously? And you're sure it doesn't involve ideas he stole from _Star Trek_? Okay, okay, schedule a meeting with him tomorrow. No, not that early, are you insane?” He wandered out of the room again.

Bruce snorted. “As if Tony doesn't steal ideas from sci-fi shows.” He’d spent nearly an hour talking Tony down from something inspired by _Battlestar Galactica_ only last week. And not even the remake, the original with the wobbly sets.

“Pretty sure he only watches them to get ideas,” agreed Clint. “I caught him taking notes during _Star Wars_ once.”

“ _Star Wars_ ,” said Steve with a frown. “That's the one with the light-swords? And the dame with the silly hairstyles?” He was using his ‘modern life is so silly’ tone of voice, which meant he actually knew exactly which one _Star Wars_ was, he was just trying to lighten the mood. Given the tension emanating from Martin, that might not be the worst idea. If they could relax him a bit, maybe they could get some clues as to his intentions towards Tony.

Sometimes, Bruce worried he might act a bit too much like an overprotective father with his friends, but when dealing with Tony it was hard not to. Tony needed people fighting his corner on the things he thought he just had to put up because he was too used to being screwed over.

“Lightsabers,” corrected Clint, “but yeah.”

“If Tony could make a working lightsaber, he really would be a genius,” said Bruce, his brain already running through the scientific impossibilities as he started serving up.

“I'm not sure the world is ready for a lightsaber-wielding Hulk yet, man,” said Clint. “Sorry, and all that.”

“I'll try not to be too broken-hearted,” said Bruce, taking the plates over to the table. It felt like there were a lot of things the world wasn’t ready for when it came to the Hulk. Martin’s flinch as Bruce put a plate in front of him only went to prove that.

“I hope you like things spicy,” he said, rather than taking offence.

“Uh, yes, yes, I do. Spicy is great. Wonderful,” babbled Martin, clutching at his cutlery with white knuckles.

“Good, good,” said Bruce, thinking that it really wasn’t going to take much to scare him off if it turned out he was only interested in Tony's money or fame. He exchanged another look with Clint.

Bruce settled down with his plate and they all started eating, Martin spending as much time darting looks at them as he did picking at his food.

“So, whereabouts in England are you from?” asked Steve, in a friendly voice that hopefully Martin didn’t realise was covering the beginning of an interrogation. “I spent some time there, you know.”

Okay, so that was the plan. Keep things casual and light-hearted, but pump Martin for as much information as possible before Tony got off the phone and realised what they were doing. Bruce could get behind that.

Martin’s answers were not entirely enlightening. He only grew more nervous as the conversation went on, and became more than a little stuttery. Well, at least they didn’t need to worry that he was some kind of spy, either corporate or super-villain. Spies generally were able to answer easy questions about their cover story without stammering.

What Bruce couldn’t work out was what, exactly, Tony saw in him. He usually only saw Tony’s conquests in passing, as they headed in or out, because they didn’t hang around once Tony was done with them, but it was enough to have a general idea of them as all beautiful and on the over-polished side of glamorous. Martin was neither of those things and wasn’t coming across as a particularly interesting conversational partner either.

Bruce tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, but as the conversation wore on and Martin stalled again on how to describe a hen party to Steve, he privately decided they didn’t need to spend too much time investigating Martin, as they were unlikely to see him again.

Tony came back holding a drink, but he didn’t come inside. Instead, he leaned against the kitchen door with his eyes focused on the back of Martin’s head. As Martin floundered in the face of Steve’s awkward 1940s assumptions about women, an amused smile crossed his face.

“Almost,” he put in eventually, rescuing Martin. “Seeing the sights and engaging in drunken debauchery, right?”

Martin turned and his face just lit up, all traces of terror wiped away. He and Tony exchanged a look and Bruce realised that there wasn’t just amusement in Tony’s smile, there was also affection, and it was mirrored by Martin.

Huh. He must be missing something. He’d have to keep watching.

He had kept watching, all through the three years that had passed since then, and while he still didn’t quite get it, he’d at least realised that he was unlikely to ever need to protect Tony from Martin.

“Is Tony coming down?” asked Bruce.

Martin shook his head. “He’s headed straight to his workshop. He wants to get some work done before he gets distracted with everything else.”

“‘Everything else’ being his wedding?” asked Hank.

Martin gave a shrug, not quite looking at Hank. Well, he was a bit unusual if you weren’t used to conversations with large, furry blue guys. “I think he meant my family, actually.”

“Ah, the in-laws,” said Hank, nodding.

“C’mon, surely you don’t have to be scared of your in-laws if you’re Tony Stark?” asked Scott.

Martin winced. “Um,” he said, then just looked helplessly at Bruce.

Ah yes. Tony didn’t need protecting from Martin, but Martin needed protecting from… Well, from quite a lot of things, really, starting with conversations with strangers.

Bruce stepped in and rescued Martin. “Martin’s family haven’t entirely forgiven Tony for being the reason they were all kidnapped by Doom a year or two ago,” he said. “On which note, if everyone could avoid freaking them out too much, I’m sure Tony would appreciate it.”

Logan just snorted, which wasn’t entirely reassuring, but Hank met Bruce’s eye and gave him a nod. Excellent, Bruce could trust him to keep Logan from doing anything too Wolverine-y to Martin’s irritating older brother. That was a start.

****

There was a lemon in Pepper’s handbag. She looked at it for a long moment, then glanced up to see Natasha watching her. She raised an eyebrow and just got a slow blink in return, which wasn’t a lot of help but was probably all she could expect.

“Are you going to the airport with Martin?” she asked, rather than pursuing the matter.

Natasha nodded. “Only two days out. Neither fiancé is allowed out of the Tower without an Avenger.”

“I’ll come with you,” said Pepper. “Just let me get this paperwork to Tony.”

She left her bag where it was and when she came back up from threatening Tony into actually reading the papers, the lemon was gone.

If Pepper had learnt anything from the influx of superheroes into Tony’s life, it was that sometimes it was much better not to ask.

Natasha made Martin sit in the back of the car and then went into super-spy mode, watching through the windows and occasionally glaring at a passing car. Pepper would have found it amusing if she weren’t all too aware of how often things went wrong for superheroes and their nearest and dearest. As novel as it was to be preparing for the wedding of the very last person she thought she’d ever see getting hitched, she didn’t want to have to do it more than once.

And she definitely didn’t want to see Tony getting hurt now that he’d taken such a huge emotional step, which was why she’d arranged to get Martin on his own for a bit.

“Do you know the first thing Tony ever told me about marriage?” she asked him, glancing in the rearview mirror to meet Martin’s eyes.

“Um. No?”

“That it was a con designed to trap people in misery,” she said. “He was drunk and maudlin, so I took it with a pinch of salt even then, but I want you to realise what a big deal it is for Tony to be getting married.”

She spotted the precise moment when Martin realised what this talk was going to be, because he tried to crawl backwards into the seat to get away. Good, she wanted him to take this seriously.

"Do not even think about taking this commitment lightly. If you think there's any chance at all that this isn't going to be long-term for you—"

"It is!" he insisted. "I'm— It's— I was the one who asked!"

Pepper gave him the look she usually reserved for department heads who hadn’t met their budgets. "I just want to make it very clear that there is a long line of people who will be very, very displeased if you treat Tony with anything other than complete respect."

"That's very true," said Natasha, joining in and turning her own cold-eyed stare on Martin.

Martin actually whimpered, which made Pepper worry that maybe she’d gone too far. If Tony found out about this he’d be furious with her. But then, he deserved to have someone watching his back, whether or not he believed it.

"Oh god, I won't, I promise. I love him," Martin babbled.

"Love is not a guarantee that you will treat him well," said Natasha.

Martin was saved from responding by a loud sound above them. They all glanced up and Natasha spat out something in Russian that sounded like a swear word.

There was a large metal craft hovering above their car, the like of which Pepper had never seen before. "What the hell—?"

Natasha rolled down the window and leaned out with a gun, firing up at it. "No! I refuse to allow this to happen! Pepper, drive faster."

Pepper pressed her foot down on the accelerator as the other cars around them all swerved out of the way, hitting their horns as if that would stop the looming ship overhead.

"That's not any aircraft I know," said Martin with horror, as if that were the most troubling thing about this situation.

"I'm pretty sure it's not human," said Natasha grimly.

A hatch in the bottom of the craft opened and Pepper tried to swerve across the road so that they weren't under it, but the plane followed too closely and she couldn’t shake it.

Blue light shimmered around the car.

"Faster!" snarled Natasha, firing up at the ship.

Pepper gripped the wheel tighter. "I can't go any faster!"

The car began to shake and Pepper saw Martin desperately jabbed at the panic buttons on his Starkwatch.

Pepper clutched at the wheel with both hands, trying to get away as the other cars on the road swerved out of the way, horns blaring. "Tasha, what do I do?" she asked. 

She was doing her best to keep some measure of calm, but she wasn’t doing a great job. At least she was doing better than Martin, who looked as if he was going to just curl up and start weeping at any moment.

Natasha was half out of the window, gun still aimed over their heads at the craft. "Just keep driving!" she shouted.

The shaking grew worse, and then the whole car lifted up off the ground.

"Holy shit," swore Pepper, as they were pulled up into the belly of the ship.

"Oh god," whimpered Martin. "Oh god, oh god, oh god."

"Shut up," snapped Natasha.

Pepper took a deep breath, clinging onto the useless steering wheel. Martin made a terrified noise as the car was pulled inside the craft, up into a vast metal hangar and the trapdoors below them slammed shut.

****

Tony managed to get through Pepper's paperwork without falling asleep and signed it off with a flourish, then headed back up to the penthouse.

"All paperwork that needed to be looked at pre-wedding is done," he announced to Clint, who was hovering over by the windows, looking out over the city. "Do I get a treat for finishing my homework?"

Clint shrugged. "I don't care if you do it or not, unless it means Pepper won't let you go to the wedding."

Tony snorted. "You guys are taking this very seriously."

"Would you prefer to have to go through multiple attempts at this?" asked Clint.

"Do I get a honeymoon every time?" asked Tony. "Cos, frankly, that's the bit I'm really looking forward to."

"Right," said Clint, giving him a significantly raised eyebrow. "Because you guys don't have sex as often as if you were on a honeymoon most of the time."

Tony thought about that for a moment. "Yeah, okay, maybe, but in my defence, Martin has all these freck—"

He was interrupted by an alarm. "Sir, Captain Crieff has just pressed his panic alarm," said JARVIS.

Tony was already jogging over to the balcony. "JARVIS, get the suit ready."

Clint ran off in the direction of the Quinjet hangar, but Tony wasn't paying attention. The suit was shooting out of the hatch in the balcony and he held his arms out so it could form around him. The moment the faceplate clicked into place and the HUD came online, he took off, pushing for every scrap of speed he could get.

"Captain Crieff's last known co-ordinates are next to Flushing Meadows," said JARVIS, putting up a map. "I am searching for information on any incidents in the area."

"Right," said Tony, then he frowned. "Wait, what do you mean by 'last known' co-ordinates? Why don't we know his current ones?"

"I'm afraid the signal is being blocked," said JARVIS.

That shouldn't be possible. Tony's heart leapt into his throat and he pushed harder at the repulsors.

"I'm getting reports of an unidentified flying craft," said JARVIS. "It seems to have hovered over the freeway."

"Unidentified?" asked Tony.

"Some of the bystanders took photos," said JARVIS. He flashed one up briefly, showing a strange metal ship of a kind Tony couldn't identify.

By the time Tony got to Flushing Meadows, he didn't need the co-ordinates to tell where Martin had been. There was a group of cars pulled over, people getting out and gesturing wildly at each other. He landed in the centre and turned to the nearest person.

"What happened?" he demanded.

"Oh man, it was totally insane," said the guy. "This, like, UFO thing came down and just sucked a car up inside it, then took off at, like, this incredible speed!"

A freezing cold took hold of Tony's guts. "What kind of car did it pick up?"

The man shrugged. "I don't know, a car, man."

"It was a silver Mercedes-Benz," said the woman next to him. “Looked like an E-Class Sports Sedan.”

Pepper's car. Oh god, Martin and Pepper had been kidnapped. And Natasha, which was the only good thing about it, because at least they’d have Black Widow looking after them.

"Which way did they go?" he asked. The guy gestured towards the north, and Tony took off.

"JARVIS, pass all that along to the others and tell them I'm going to try and find it. Hack into every satellite you can find and see if you can get any tracking information."

"I'm on it, sir," said JARVIS.

There was nothing. Half an hour passed but JARVIS couldn’t find a single clue. No sign of a trail, no trace on radar, no signals for JARVIS to follow back to their source. Both Martin and Natasha had tracking devices on them, but they'd stopped transmitting at exactly the same time, less than a minute after Martin had activated his panic alarm.

Tony zigzagged across the sky in the direction the onlookers had pointed in, desperation clawing at him.

The other Avengers had arrived at the scene minutes after Tony and started interrogating witnesses, without much luck.

"They're all just saying it was a big spaceship-type thing, no identifying markings, completely unrecognisable," said Clint over the comms. "A couple of them got photos."

"JARVIS, see if you can do anything with those," said Tony.

"Of course, sir," said JARVIS.

"Tony," said Steve with a hesitation in his voice that meant Tony already knew what he was going to say. "We should head back to the Tower to—"

"No," said Tony, putting more speed into his repulsors, even though he didn't really know where he was going. "We're going to find them."

"Yes, we are," said Steve. "But not like this. There's no trail. We need to set up a control room, get all the information we have consolidated. Just running around isn't going to find them."

Tony clenched his teeth and cut the connection. Cap was right, but that didn't mean Tony wanted to give up that easily. He flew straight up, as high as he could before the warning lights started to light up his HUD. He hovered for a moment, gazing down at the world spread out below him. It looked quiet and peaceful, and completely absent of any sign of Martin or Pepper.

He wanted to scream, but he swallowed it back down.

"Okay," he said. "JARVIS, tell Cap I'll meet him back at the Tower."

He paused for one last moment, then turned back to Manhattan. They'd find something. They had to. And in the meantime, Martin and Pepper had Natasha with them. There were very few people Tony would rather have protecting his fiancé and his best friend, and one of them was himself.

Back at the Tower, the others had already set up a command centre in one of the conference rooms, with the various photos of the ship projected around the walls. Tony took his helmet off to get a good look, but left the rest of the suit on. If they found something, he wanted to be able to leave immediately.

"What the hell is this?" he asked, looking at the shape of a ship that shouldn't exist. "How does it even fly? Are they seriously fucking with the laws of physics this badly?"

"The witnesses said it was pretty much silent," said Bruce. "I think—"

Tony groaned. "Oh god. Don't tell me. Fucking aliens. What the fuck would fucking aliens want with my Spitfire?"

Steve flinched every time he swore but didn't say anything, which Tony appreciated. He couldn't really handle much more right now.

"They may not have been after him," said Bruce. "They were in Pepper's car, after all. Or they may have been tracking Natasha."

Tony shook his head. "Why would aliens want Pepper? They've got a company they need running? Well, they can go screw themselves, she's running my company."

He took a deep breath, then turned to the main screen. "Okay, what have we got, JARVIS?"

"I have used the available data from various photos and videos taken by those present to create this replica of the event, sir," said JARVIS.

A hologram came up, showing Pepper's car trying to outrun the spaceship that was hovering over it, and then being sucked up into its belly before it flew off at great speed. JARVIS rewound it to the point where the car disappeared inside the ship.

"This is the moment when I lost the signals from Agent Romanov and Captain Crieff's locators. It is also when all three of their phones, and Captain Crieff's Starkwatch, stopped being in connection with the network."

"The ship itself blocks the signals," said Tony. "Damnit."

"Can we get any tracking on the ship itself?" asked Clint.

Tony shook his head. "JARVIS is plugged into all the airspace tracking systems, NORAD, NASA, all of it. No one got anything."

"Jesus," said Clint. "Okay, well, what else is there?"

Nothing. There was nothing else. If they couldn't track it, and Martin, Pepper and Natasha couldn't get a signal out, they had no way of finding any spaceship that moved that fast. Christ, it might not even still be in the atmosphere. Maybe Martin was halfway to the moon by now.

The thought made Tony feel sick. No, that was bullshit. There had to be something. He wasn't losing two of the most important people in his life this easily.

"Sir, Mrs Knapp-Shappey is attempting to call Captain Crieff's phone. It's her third attempt."

It took Tony a moment to place who Mrs Knapp-Shappey was. "Ah, crap," he said. "They're at the airport. Redirect the call to me, will you?"

"Martin!" came Carolyn's distinct, strident tones. "Where the bloody hell are you? If you've been distracted having carnal relations with that—"

Tony cleared his throat. "It's Tony, Carolyn."

"Oh god," she said. "He's not even left the Tower yet, has he? Honestly, that boy!"

God, Tony wished that Martin hadn't left the Tower and that they'd both been distracted by an enthusiastic bout of sex. "Actually, he left in plenty of time," he said. "Unfortunately, there was—" He had to stop and take a deep breath. "—an incident on the way. Can you guys get taxis over here? That was the plan anyway, right? Just, with Martin to be a welcoming committee and Wendy-wrangler. You’ll just have to put someone else on that task."

There was a pause, and then Carolyn said, "Oh god, what has the boy done now?" in a much quieter voice.

"We'll fill you in when you get here," said Tony, because that way someone else could be responsible for telling Martin's family and friends that Tony had let him be kidnapped two days before his wedding.

Carolyn took a deep breath. "Very well," she said. "We will be there as soon as possible."

She hung up and Tony took a deep breath, turning back to the information on the wall. There had to be something here that would give him a lead.


	3. Chapter 3

When Martin woke up, his head was throbbing and his whole body ached. The last thing he remembered was some kind of gas surrounding the car as it was set down on the floor of what looked like a landing bay.

He blinked his eyes open. They were in a featureless grey room with metal walls. There was a wide window in one wall, next to a weirdly rounded door. From Martin's angle on the floor, all he could see through the window was more dull grey ceiling.

Pepper was still unconscious next to him but Natasha was already sitting up, frowning at the wall next to her.

"We're still on the ship," she said. Martin groaned and contemplated just shutting his eyes and passing out again. "The engine vibration is very faint, but you can still sense it."

Martin couldn't sense anything at the moment. Everything felt foggy. He moaned again, just to make his misery clear.

"It will wear off quickly enough," said Natasha. "We were only out for two hours."

Two hours. Oh god. "Carolyn's going to kill me," he said, rubbing at his head as he sat up. "She hates being kept waiting."

"That's the least of our problems," said Natasha. She stood up and moved over to the window, frowning at whatever was outside before turning her attention to the door.

Pepper let out a quiet sigh and her eyes flickered open. "Oh, for fuck's sake," she muttered.

Martin pulled himself upright and leant against a wall, watching as Natasha carefully examined every inch of the door. "Can we get out?"

"No," she said shortly. She turned her attention back to the window, looking around the edges for a moment and then pressing on the glass.

"They better not have damaged my car," said Pepper, sitting up. She looked at her watch and made a face. "So much for my plans for today." She took out her phone and sighed.

"No signal," said Natasha. "Not even on my SHIELD communicator."

Martin belatedly thought to look at his Starkwatch and phone, neither of which had any signal. "Does that mean they can't track us?"

"Probably," said Natasha.

Martin looked down at the signet ring he now had two reasons to never took over, brushing a finger over it. Tony had upgraded the tracking chip in it just over a year ago to something with a signal that he claimed he'd be able to follow anywhere on Earth.

But they weren't on Earth on anymore.

"If Tony had your location, he'd be here by now," said Pepper. "Probably blowing things up."

"Oh god, Tony," said Martin, his voice going squeaky with realisation. "He'll be frantic." The thought of Tony freaking out because Martin was missing was just about the only thing that could have made the sick feeling in his stomach worse.

Natasha turned away from the window. "I'll get you back," she promised. "You won't miss your wedding."

Martin hadn't even considered that he might. "That's not until the day after tomorrow." Surely two days was long enough for a rescue, even if they couldn’t manage an escape?

"Exactly," she said.

That wasn't as reassuring as she probably meant it to be. 

He stood up on shaking legs and went over to the window. Outside was a corridor lined with regularly spaced windows and identical doors. Martin could see into the room opposite, which contained two orangutans who were slumped, miserably, in opposite corners. He glanced further down the corridor and glimpsed a fox pacing in another room.

"What the hell is this place?" he asked.

Natasha shrugged. "Looked like an alien craft from the outside," she said. "Certainly this window isn't made of any substance I recognise."

Pepper had got up and was looking out the window with a frown as well. "So, it's aliens who are going around kidnapping animals? And us?"

"Have you noticed what we have in common with the animals?" asked Natasha.

There was a pause as both Martin and Pepper squinted at the orangutans and the fox. Martin spotted a red squirrel in the window of one of the other rooms, which was when the penny dropped.

"Oh god, this is a ginger thing."

"Apparently," said Natasha.

"Oh, come on," said Pepper. "That's just stupid." She moved closer to the window, frowning through the other windows. "I don't believe that we got kidnapped by aliens because we're all redheads."

Martin spotted a flock of robins further down and turned away. "Tony's never going to let us live this down."

There was nothing in the room to look at and Martin's head still hurt. He sat back down in one corner with a sigh. "Are we just waiting to be rescued, then?"

Natasha scowled. "I prefer to rescue myself."

"I prefer to not be in danger in the first place," said Pepper, kicking off her shoes and sitting down opposite Martin. "But my boss decided becoming a superhero was a great idea, so that ship's definitely sailed."

"As tempting as it is, I don't think we can blame this one on Tony," said Natasha.

"At this point in my life, I blame everything on Tony,” said Pepper.

Pepper terrified Martin for a number of reasons, not least of which was how important she was to Tony, but that didn’t mean Martin could let her get away with saying things like that. "I don't think that's entirely fair," he said, carefully.

Pepper just snorted. "Say that again when you've known him as long as I have."

A surge of defensiveness surged up in Martin's chest. "I don't think knowing him longer will make me blame him for random things like aliens," he said. "That just seems a bit mean, actually."

That earned him a sharp look and Martin tensed automatically. Oh god, was he really going to wind up the two terrifying women he was locked in a tiny room with? Especially when one of them had already been halfway through threatening him before they got kidnapped?

"Oh, fine," Pepper relented, and Martin relaxed. "This isn't Tony's fault, I'm just being grumpy."

"Hard to imagine why," said Natasha, glancing around the room one final time before giving in and sitting down as well.

"I had a movie and a bottle of wine with my name on it for tonight," said Pepper, letting her head drop back against the wall. "Now I'm not even sure I'm getting dinner."

"You think they won't feed us?" asked Martin. "Oh god." It felt like his lungs were tightening. He tried to take a deep breath but it got caught halfway up his throat so that he had to take another one, and then another almost immediately. “It’s my stag do tonight. I don’t want to miss my stag do.”

"Hey," said Pepper. "Martin, keep calm. It'll be okay."

"I refuse to let anything happen to you," added Natasha.

Martin tried his best to calm down, squeezing his eyes shut to block out the sterile room. "Right, I'm fine. I'm fine," he said. "Totally fine."

He didn't feel fine. He felt like he might vomit. That really wouldn't help the atmosphere in the room.

Oh god, what if one of them needed the loo?

"Martin, seriously," said Pepper. "It's going to be fine. Tony will get us out; you know he's already looking for us, right? And causing hell until the rest of the world is as well?"

That was true. Martin pictured Tony throwing one of his fits, all dressed up in the Iron Man suit, and immediately felt better. "Okay," he managed. "Yeah. Sorry."

"Don't worry, I'm freaking out too," said Pepper. "Just less obviously. You know, that was pretty much the first thing Tony told me about you."

Martin stared at her. "That I freak out a lot?"

She smiled. "No, that you don't hide what you’re feeling. I mean, it was said in a Tony sort of way, let's see if I can remember..." She straightened her shoulders and then put on a reasonable impression of Tony's over-excited tone. "'This guy I met is coming over, he's totally hot, seriously Pep, you should see him—ginger and freckles and he blushes, like, all the damn time. He doesn't bother hiding a thing he's feeling, it's awesome.'" She cleared her throat and dropped the Tony impression. "He was trying to persuade me to let him out of a meeting so that he could go and meet you at the airport."

Martin cast his mind back. "That was the second time we met," he said. "He skipped a meeting for it?"

"He _rescheduled_ a meeting," corrected Pepper. "I wasn't going to let him miss it entirely."

Tony had never mentioned a meeting. Not for the first time, Martin wondered just how much of his life Tony had rearranged around Martin without saying anything.

There was a thump from outside and Natasha sprang to her feet, staring out of the window. Martin and Pepper got up rather slower, but in time to see two strange grey creatures going past, wheeling a trolley.

"What the hell?" he breathed.

Pepper strode to the window and thumped on it. "Oi!" she shouted through at the creatures. "Let us go!"

What was probably the creatures’ heads turned towards them, but they didn't stop moving or give any sign that they understood.

"What the hell were they?" asked Martin.

Natasha frowned. "Nothing I've ever seen before."

“Oh god,” Martin said, trying to keep his voice from going too high-pitched and failing.

"Something's happening," said Natasha. "They've gassed the orangutans."

Martin joined her and Pepper at the window. The orangutans in the room opposite had collapsed on the floor. "Are they okay?"

Natasha shrugged. "They're still breathing." She nodded down the corridor. "And someone's coming for them."

Two more of the creatures were heading towards them, wheeling another trolley. They stopped outside and opened the door to the orangutans' room.

Pepper banged on the window again. "Let us go! We're sentient creatures! And I have a meeting to get to!"

The creatures barely spared her a glance. They picked up one of the unconscious orangutans and lifted it onto the trolley, then shut the door again and headed back down the corridor.

"What do you think they're going to do with it?" asked Martin.

Natasha shook her head. "No idea."

"Some kind of creepy alien tests?" suggested Pepper. "Maybe they're trying to isolate the ginger gene?"

"For what possible purpose?" asked Natasha.

Pepper shrugged. "People are weird about redheads."

"Very true," said Natasha, running her hand through her hair. "Particularly men. It often works to my advantage."

Martin snorted. "Maybe for women. I've only ever got bullied for it."

"Tony likes it," Pepper pointed out.

Martin couldn't deny that. "Yeah, true," he said. "He's a special case, though. About a lot of things. Mostly, I just got names from everyone else, especially at school."

"I used to get names when I was a kid," said Pepper. "It didn't really bother me, though. Most of them just seemed like they thought I hadn't noticed what colour my hair is. What really bugs me is when the media refer to me as a 'firecracker' or something similar. My management style is completely unrelated to the colour of my hair."

"Oh, yes, I know that one," said Natasha. "You're not allowed to get angry without it being because of your hair colour."

"Unless it's because of PMS," put in Pepper.

Natasha made a disgusted noise. "Fucking men," she muttered.

Martin quietly moved out of the conversation and back to the corner before he attracted the blame for his entire gender.

"The other orangutan is waking up," said Natasha, not long after that. "The gas doesn't last long."

"It lasted long enough for the other one to be wheeled off," said Pepper.

Nothing happened for a very long time. Martin found that with nothing to do, his mind fixated rather heavily on his fears, of which there were many. What if they were stuck here forever? What if he never saw Tony again? What if the aliens—or whatever they were—were only keeping them here until they found the time to start torturing them?

He curled up in the corner, arms anchored around his knees, and tried to keep the terror running through his body a secret from Natasha and Pepper, both of whom looked more bored than scared. Natasha was leaning against the wall by the window, staring out at the corridor, while Pepper had pulled her phone out and was replying to her emails, queueing them up to send as soon as there was signal again.

Martin wished he had her confidence that there would be a signal again. He poked at his phone, half-heartedly playing a game Tony had programmed for him that was essentially Candy Crush but with little planes instead of sweets. He couldn't concentrate at all, though, and ended up tucking it away, thinking it might be better to conserve the battery.

"They're coming back," said Natasha.

The creatures were bringing back the orangutan on the trolley, still unconscious, but a large patch of his fur had been shaved off and Martin could see injection sites in the bare skin.

"Oh god, what did they do to it?"

"Definitely creepy alien tests," said Pepper.

The orangutan was put back in the cell with its friend, who had been knocked out for the occasion, and then the aliens walked away again.

Pepper let out a sigh. "Fantastic."

"Oh god," said Martin, rubbing his hands over his face. "I'm going to miss my wedding."

"No!" snapped Natasha. "We have plenty of time. We'll be out way before then. There has to be a way to get this door open."

Martin couldn't share her confidence. He settled back down in the corner, slumping against the wall. “And then what? We’re still on an alien spacecraft with no way off.”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” she said, crouching to examine the part of the door that looked like it was the lock.

****

By the time MJN, the Crieffs and the other Martin and his wife arrived, Tony still had nothing on Martin’s location. There was no sign of the spacecraft anywhere in the planet's airspace and none of the global tracking systems he could hack into had picked up anything unexpected in orbit or, god forbid, already heading off into space.

God, what would he do if he never got Martin back? If he just disappeared off into the vacuum of space and never returned?

It kinda felt like Tony should have seen this coming. Things with Martin were too good, and he didn't get to have good things—not ones that lasted, anyway.

"You!" demanded Carolyn as soon as she stepped out of the lift. "Stark! What have you done with my pilot?"

"He's technically not _your_ pilot anymore," said Tony. Martin’s family followed MJN out of the lift, Wendy looking very pale and Caitlin keeping her hands on the shoulders of her two sons. Tony wondered if she was worried they’d get kidnapped as well or just that they’d be so excited about being in the Avenger’s penthouse that they’d rush off and start destroying things.

Carolyn’s glare went up a notch. Herc took her arm in what might have been intended as a restraining gesture, but she ignored him in favour of sending a look of pure death at Tony. "Don't be ridiculous. We both know that if you cut Martin open you would find a plane inside, and that plane would have MJN painted on the tailfin."

"That's a very specific mental image," said Clint. “Hey guys, how was the flight?”

He'd been following Tony around ever since he'd landed back at the Tower, quiver over his shoulder and bow in hand. Tony thought about pointing out that he was wearing the most advanced weapon on the planet, and if someone tried to attack him it wasn't going to make much difference to have a guy with a weapon that was out-dated three centuries ago beside him. That seemed like the kind of thing that wouldn't go down so well though, and Tony was self-aware enough to know that he wasn't exactly in the right mood for making jokes.

“The flight would have been better if we hadn’t landed to find out that Stark has let my brother be kidnapped,” said Simon, glaring at Tony.

“Oh, I don’t think we can hold Tony responsible for this,” said Clint, in a casual voice that did nothing to hide the steel underneath.

Tony thought he probably agreed more with Simon than Clint on this one. If it weren’t for Tony, Martin would be safe and well, and not a target for some kind of inter-galactic kidnapper.

“He seems to have been taken by aliens, along with Pepper and Natasha,” he said.

"Oh no!" said Arthur. "Poor Skip!"

"Good Lord," said Carolyn. "Who allowed that to happen?"

"No one _allowed_ it to happen," snapped Tony.

"At least he's with someone who doesn't cry at the first sign of violence," said Douglas, in what he probably thought was a comforting way, but all it did was vividly remind Tony of how terrified Martin was when he was being threatened. What if they were hurting him? Cutting him open and not finding a plane at all, just soft, vulnerable parts that they'd pull out and dissect and—

He took a deep breath and made himself stop thinking about that.

"We're doing everything we can," he said. "We've just— We'll find him. I promise."

“Oh dear,” said Wendy. “Poor Martin.” She sounded just as devastated as Tony felt.

Carolyn glanced at her, then visibly pushed her anger aside. "Arthur, come with me. We're going to make coffee for everyone."

She hustled Arthur off, leaving the others to bring their bags in and settle down on the sofas.

The other Martin trailed in after Martin’s family, looking a bit shell-shocked and gripping his wife’s hand, and Tony realised that for him and most of the Crieffs, it was their first time in Avenger's Tower. Normally he'd make a big thing of it, but he had much better things to do right now.

“Douglas, Herc, you guys are all in the usual rooms, and there's a few free next to them for the others, if you want to show them down,” Tony said. Carolyn, Arthur, Douglas and Herc had stayed here often enough on MJN business to have a set of spare rooms that they generally claimed as their own, on a corridor that was mostly spare rooms and which was being used as the hub for Martin’s family and friends over the next few days. One of the rooms had been set aside for Martin to sleep in the night before the wedding, so that they could maintain the tradition of not seeing each other until the ceremony.

God, Tony needed to make sure Martin was back in time to use it.

He turned back to the display JARVIS was beaming onto the wall, the one that had no clues, no leads, nothing he could follow-up on to find Martin. He sank his hands into his hair, pulling on it, as Herc and Douglas shepherded the others away.

"JARVIS, run another scan for Martin's tracking signal."

JARVIS was good enough not to point out that he'd last done that fifteen minutes ago, and that he didn't actually need to run a scan for a signal that would be broadcast straight to his server. "Running scan, sir."

Steve came striding in. "Anything?"

Tony shook his head. "You?"

Steve had been liaising with SHIELD, who were contacting all their people in the various agencies around the world that might have tracked the ship.

"Nothing," said Steve.

Tony gritted his teeth. Damnit. How the hell was he supposed to find Martin without any information?

"Natasha will get a signal to us," said Clint, with confidence Tony didn't feel.

****

Martin had initially gone for that first drink with little Martin out of pity, and because when he’d mentioned the invitation to Ruth she’d as good as chased him out the house. She had this thing about him not having enough friends, which was probably fair. Even now, little Martin was pretty much his only friend other than the other taxi drivers, and Martin had a feeling they didn’t really like him.

That first trip to the pub had been pretty awkward, especially as Martin still hadn’t been convinced that little Martin hadn’t intended it to be a date of some kind. It had only taken about half a pint for them to settle into a proper chat though, finding out just how much they had in common.

Ruth had been pleased when Martin had told her he’d probably be seeing little Martin again. Martin sometimes worried that she’d taken too much away from all the books she’d read about the best ways to socialise children.

Even after he and little Martin became what could be described as ‘mates’, Martin still had a vague sense of pity for him. There was just something about little Martin that was hapless, even if he did have a firmer toehold on his dream career than Martin did.

And then had come the day that Ruth had let out a choked sound of shock and thrust the gossip page of the newspaper under his nose, and there had been a photo of little Martin standing hand-in-hand with Tony Stark in front of the Taj Mahal, awkwardly waving at the press.

Martin gaped at it, then pulled out his mobile.

_Your casual American fling is TONY STARK??!?!?_

It was a few hours before little Martin replied. _I take it you saw the photos. It’s actually a bit more than a casual fling now._

Martin refrained from replying with _NO SHIT, YOU WERE AT THE KING OF SWEDEN’S BIRTHDAY PARTY!_ with an admirable amount of restraint.

He did make sure he arranged to meet up with little Martin just as soon as he was back in Fitton. He got to the pub they’d turned into their regular to find little Martin drinking a pint with the same tiny grimace of distaste that he always had. Martin kept meaning to find a way to let him know that he didn’t need to drink what he clearly assumed was expected of a man meeting his mates in the pub if he’d prefer something else.

“Tony fucking Stark,” said Martin as he sat down opposite him, and then just waved a hand helplessly in the air because how else was he meant to convey the feelings he had about that?

“Yeah,” agreed little Martin. “It sometimes still hits me a bit like that.” He gave a shrug. “I don’t know, it just…sort of happened.”

And now Martin was sat in the penthouse of Stark Tower, watching Iron Man pace backwards and forwards while Thor showed off on the balcony and Hawkeye fondled his bow.

Christ.

And that was without considering that little Martin, who really wasn’t very brave and got so easily panicked, had vanished off in an alien spaceship.

Martin reached out for Ruth’s hand and clung on, wondering if this was where she’d thought her little husband-socialising experiment would end.

****

Thor was entertaining Martin’s nephews (and Arthur) by showing off his hammer tricks on the balcony while the adults drank coffee and tried to act as if they weren’t all horribly worried, when JARVIS finally came up with something.

“Sir, Captain Crieff’s tracker has come back online,” he said. 

Tony sprang to his feet, heading for the launchpad. “Send the location to the suit.”

“Agent Romanov’s signal has also reappeared,” said JARVIS as Tony put his helmet on, then waved at Thor to keep the kids out of the way as he took off.

“I have satellite imagery of their location,” said JARVIS, and a video came up in the corner of Tony’s HUD. A small craft was wobbling through the sky somewhere over an ocean.

“Is that— Did they steal a getaway vehicle from the aliens?” asked Tony. He couldn’t help letting out a laugh that was at least three-quarters relief.

They were flying over the Atlantic back towards New York when Tony caught up with them. He did a loop around the nose of the plane, then hovered in front of the windscreen where he could see through to the cockpit.

Martin was crouched over unfamiliar controls, a fierce scowl of concentration on his face that didn’t go away when he glanced over at Tony. Tony felt his heart pick up pace at the sight of him, and he gave a cheery wave. God, thank god, he was okay. He was alive and well and flying a plane, there wasn’t really any way to make Martin more okay.

There was a movement behind Martin and Natasha ducked into view, giving Tony a thumbs up that he gleefully returned.

“JARVIS, is there anyway we can hack into their communications?”

“I am unable to connect with the plane’s systems,” said JARVIS. “However, Miss Potts’s cell phone has reconnected to the network.”

“Call her,” said Tony, turning so that he was flying in convoy with them.

“You’re a little late for a rescue, Tony,” said Pepper when she answered. “We managed it all on our own.”

“So I can see,” said Tony. “Guess I should have had more confidence in you guys. Are you all unhurt?”

“I think Natasha might have a bruise or two,” said Pepper. “She broke us out and then punched a couple of aliens in the face on the way to their hangar. It was very impressive.”

“And Spitfire?” asked Tony. “He’s coping okay? Not feeling too, uh—” What was the most polite way to describe the way Martin got when he was scared? Eh, screw it, he wasn’t listening and Tony meant it with love: “Filled with mindless panic?”

Pepper did her best to hide her snort of amusement, but Tony heard it. “There was an element of that,” she said, “but the situation has been ameliorated by the current task.”

Which meant that Martin had calmed down once he’d got his hands on the controls of a plane, which made perfect sense. “Can I talk to him?”

“Tony wants to talk to you,” he heard Pepper ask.

Martin’s response was too muffled to make out, but she passed it on with an amused note in her voice.

“He said that he can’t talk to you while he’s concentrating on flying an unfamiliar vehicle because you’re far too distracting, and he also wants you to talk to ATC for him and confirm that our flight path isn’t going to cause problems.”

Tony laughed again. “That’s my Spitfire,” he said, cheerfully. “Tell him no worries. I’ll fly convoy with you and liaise with the authorities so that we keep things as legal as they can be, given he’s flying an unknown, stolen, alien vehicle.”

He couldn’t stop himself from doing another loop around the plane with relief. Oh thank god, he’d got his Spitfire and his Pepper back. Now he just had to make sure that nothing bad ever happened to them ever again. Or at least not for the next week or so.

He could still remember the heart-squeezing terror the first time Tony's superhero side-gig had put Martin in danger, on their very first Christmas together. He'd kept it together at the time and done everything he could to get Martin home safely, but once he'd got back to New York, he'd turned his attention to making sure no other bad guys had the same easy opportunity he'd given Doom, and that the consequences of going after Martin were clear to everyone.

“C’mon, You, just let me—” Tony begged, crouching down and reaching for the end of the tinsel that was wound around You’s arm. He was going to revoke Clint’s access to his workshop.

You made a shrill beeping noise and dashed off behind a bench, away from Tony.

“Come on, Christmas has been over for weeks, time to take the decorations down,” said Tony, following it.

Getting the reindeer antlers away from Butterfingers had involved a complex series of negotiations that had ended with Tony promising an upgrade that was going to mean Butterfingers would double its top speed, which was a terrible idea but at least meant he wasn’t greeted by a robot Rudolph every time he came down here.

Maybe he’d give it bumpers at the same time.

You circled around the bench with Tony closing in on it, then darted off towards the back of the workshop just before he could catch it, making an outraged noise at the idea of losing the tinsel wrapped around its arm.

Yeah, Tony was definitely revoking Clint’s access, and maybe locking him out the whole damn Tower as well.

“Sir, the satellite imaging of Latveria has revealed building works underway within Doctor Doom’s castle,” said JARVIS.

Tony gave up on You for now. “On screen,” he said, turning to look at the faintly blurry images of what was undeniably scaffolding going up over the blackened patch where Doom’s robotics workshop had been, right up until he let Tony get his hands on it.

“Doesn’t look like they’ve got very far,” he said. He could fly over there now, blow it up, and be back in time for dinner, but it seemed a shame not to wait until there was a bigger target. “I tell you what, keep an eye on it, and when it looks like they’re just putting the final touches on the roof, let me know and I’ll go over and blast it then. I want to make sure Doom has plenty of rubble to stand amongst when he shakes his fist at me.”

“Yes, sir,” said JARVIS, with the tone that meant he didn’t approve. “And you’re sure that you’re not being unreasonably petty about this?”

“Nope,” said Tony, turning back to playing chase with You. “He went after Spitfire, and Spitfire’s family. I’m gonna keep blowing his shit up just before it’s rebuilt until he gives up and takes up a better hobby than being a dick. And I’m gonna put out a memo about it every time, so that every other two-bit villain looking to piss me off knows that it’s not worth going after Martin.”

“Very good, Sir,” said JARVIS.

Apparently those memos hadn't made it to outer space, though. Fine. Tony would just have to broadcast them a bit louder.

****

For the second time that day, the guy Clint was meant to be bodyguarding took off without him. He watched him go, barely restraining a curse, then jogged out onto the balcony to talk to Thor.

“You go after him,” he said. “No point in getting Martin back if we then immediately lose Tony. Natasha would kill me.”

Thor nodded. “Stand back, nephews of Martin,” he thundered as he started to swing his hammer.

Clint gestured to the kids and got them out of the way as Thor took off. They stared after him with wide eyes. “Wow,” breathed the smaller one. “So cool!”

“Right?” agreed Clint. “Come on, let’s get you inside.”

“Is Uncle Martin going to be okay?” asked the older one. Clint wondered if he needed to learn their names at some point. Probably not.

“He’ll be just fine,” said Clint. “He’s got Black Widow with him, and Iron Man and Thor are on their way over. They’ll keep him safe.”

The boys looked as reassured as they were likely to get, so Clint shepherded them back inside to their mother, then caught Steve’s eye.

“Message from Tony that they’re all well and on their way back,” said Steve, and Clint let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. “They’re going to set down as soon as they hit land, can you take the quinjet out to meet them?”

Clint dashed off a salute sloppy enough to make Cap wince. “On it,” he said, and headed up to the quinjet hangar, relieved to finally be able to do something, even if it was just glorified taxi duty. Thank god they were all okay. Not that he'd really been all that worried about Nat, who could look after herself, but Martin was worryingly vulnerable for a guy who lived with a bunch of superheroes.

When Martin first moved into the Tower, Clint wouldn’t have thought he’d end up so fond of him, but he seemed to have a way of growing on people.

The first few weeks that Martin lived at the Tower, the other Avengers barely saw him. When he wasn’t at work, he kept himself to himself, staying in either the sitting room Tony had designed for him or in their bedroom.

Of course, they didn’t see a lot of Tony for those few weeks either, and when they did, he had the gleefully smug look of a man who was having a truly outrageous amount of really good sex at all hours of the day, so Clint didn’t notice Martin’s absence at first. It wasn’t until he went into the gym one day and found Martin there that he realised he hadn’t actually seen him around the place much more than he had when he was just coming over for visits.

"Afternoon," he said, giving Martin a grin.

Martin froze up as if he’d been caught stealing rather than just using a treadmill, then very nearly went flying off the back of the treadmill and had to hurriedly sprint forward to catch himself. Clint pretended not to notice. "Um. Hi," said Martin, fear making his voice go squeaky.

Clint set about going through his own work-out routine as if he hadn’t noticed the tension emanating from Martin. Apparently he hadn’t just been keeping out of the way because he was too busy having sex or doing whatever it was he did with all those flight manuals Tony had stockpiled for him, he’d been actively avoiding the other Avengers.

That wouldn’t do. He lived here now, he shouldn’t feel like he had to hide away.

Martin finished his run, then grabbed his stuff and headed for the door.

"You coming to the group dinner tomorrow night?" Clint called before he could leave.

"Uh," said Martin, stopping dead. "I didn't think I was invited. I'm not on the team."

Yeah, no. They couldn’t let Martin think he wasn’t welcome at dinner. Apart from anything else, Tony would give them all hell if he thought they were excluding Martin. "'Course you're invited. You're on Tony's team, aren't you? Thor's bringing Jane."

"Oh, okay," said Martin, sounding more surprised than he should have. "I guess I'll come, then."

Clint beamed at him. "Awesome." And now he just had to make sure that next time, Martin didn’t think twice about coming along.

He started a careful campaign of being nice to Martin after that. He took to casually hanging out in the main lounge when Martin came back from work and engaging him in conversation, pulling him in for longer and longer chats until Martin came and settled on the sofas when he saw Clint, no longer looking as if he was afraid of being chased off like a stray dog.

The more relaxed Martin was around Clint, the easier it was to talk to him, until Clint realised that he was pretty happy to be friends with him. Okay, so the heavy emphasis on aviation got a bit wearing, but Clint could work with that. He put up with Thor’s many tales of his hunting and feasting prowess, after all. At least Clint was a pilot and knew what Martin was talking about, whereas he’d never been a mythological figure.

Well, not yet, anyway. He had high hopes for an epic being written about his exploits that would endure for a thousand years after his death. When it was, he’d make sure there was a stanza in it about how he taught Martin to play Mariokart and throw a punch that wasn’t an embarrassment to the superhero team he lived with.

Clint landed the Quinjet in a small military airfield in Newfoundland that the Canadian Air Force were kind enough to lend them. They cleared the runway as the alien plane came into sight, flanked by Iron Man and with Thor hovering far above.

“The ground’s clear, tell him he can set it down in his own time,” Clint told Tony over the comms, and he heard him repeat it to Pepper to pass to Martin.

“And tell him he’s awesome and I love him, and he can so totally do this,” added Tony.

Clint hoped that was true. He wasn’t sure he’d be that keen on trying to land an alien craft with only guesswork as to which controls were which, and he could imagine that Martin was even less so. Clint and the airfield fire crew kept to the side of the runway as the plane came down, wobbling slightly as it grew closer, then soaring up and going around for another go at it.

He found he had his fingers crossed as it came down again, touched for a moment before bouncing up, then came down with a solid thunk and running down the runway a bit faster than Clint would have been happy about.

The plane didn’t start slowing immediately, then there was a squeal as Martin clearly located the brakes and applied them full force. It finally came to a stop just before the fence at the end of the runway and Tony landed beside it a moment later, already reaching for the door as it was thrown open from inside .

Clint jogged over as Tony helped Pepper and Natasha out, then grabbed Martin in both arms as he came out, lifting him off the ground as Martin squawked and tried to cling on to the shiny metal of the suit.

“Seriously, best damn pilot,” Clint heard Tony say as he got close. “Man, it’s so good to see you, you’re not allowed to do that to me ever again.”

“I’m pretty keen to avoid it as well,” said Martin. He tapped at Tony’s helmet. “Come on, let me see your face so I can kiss you.”

Clint glanced over Natasha, who looked to be in one piece. “I take it I’m not going to be allowed to point out how close we came to losing the bet.”

She glared at him. “We still have two days,” she said. “We barely even left the atmosphere.”

“Okay,” said Clint, “see, the point at which you _left the atmosphere_ while in an alien spacecraft, even just by a little, is the point where I start to think about having to maybe admit Johnny was right. And I really don’t wanna do that.”

She rolled her eyes. “You worry too much. We didn’t even miss Martin’s bachelor party.”

“You did miss the final suit fitting, though,” said Tony, coming over with an arm around Martin’s shoulders as if he wasn’t quite ready to let go. “Ricardo called and tore a strip out of me about it.”

Clint shrugged. “We’ll reschedule for tomorrow. What else can they have to do? Seems like we’ve all been measured about four hundred times already.”

“I try not to ask questions about the complicated and mysterious ways of tailors,” said Tony. He glanced at his watch. “Come on, let’s get back to New York so that Martin’s family can see I haven’t managed to get him killed just yet.”

“Oh god,” said Martin. “Is Mum worried?”

“Last I saw her, she was not-being-a-bother by cleaning the kitchen,” said Clint.

Martin let out a quiet groan and rubbed at his forehead. Tony leaned in and kissed his temple.

Clint flew them back to the Tower in the quinjet. He offered the controls to Martin but he declined in favour of curling up next to Tony and trying to pretend he wasn’t still recovering from his panic earlier.

Once they were back, Martin’s family and friends gathered around him and Clint took the chance to take a break from bodyguard duty and skip out on the inevitable round of teas and coffees that seemed to appear every time Arthur or Martin’s mom were allowed near the kitchen.

“We’ll be leaving for the party at 8,” he told them all before he slipped off. “Make sure you’re ready.”

Martin looked over at him from where he was being berated by his old boss for letting himself be put in danger. “We’re not having it here?”

Clint grinned at him. “C’mon, who do you take me for? We’re doing something a bit more exciting than just drinks at home.”

That made Martin look nervous, but Clint didn’t bother reassuring him. Martin was going to love it when he got there, and a bit of nervousness was good for a man in the days before his wedding.

****

Martin hadn't found choosing a Best Man easy. A couple of months after the engagement, Clint had found a list of names crumpled up in the kitchen, scrawled over with the various responsibilities involved and some large, worried question marks.

A week or two after that, he’d actually walked in on Martin making another list, this one carefully laid out with columns of pros and cons.

“Hey, Martin, we’re going to catch Steve and Thor up on _The Matrix_ tonight, if you want to come down,” he said, wandering into Martin’s room without knocking.

Martin was at his desk, hunched over a piece of paper with a pen gripped in his hand. He looked distracted when he glanced up. “The Matrix? Oh, um, right.” He glanced back down at his paper and Clint wandered over to have a look.

He didn’t get a chance to see more than the title— _Possible Best Men_ —before Martin snatched it up and hid it from him.

“Sorry,” said Clint, taking a step back. “Just being nosey. You still torn over a Best Man?”

Martin deflated. “It’s so hard,” he moaned. “Every time I think I’m set on someone, I realise that it wouldn’t work. I’m so jealous of Tony; he didn’t even have to ask Rhodey, he just got a text telling him that if he asked anyone else their friendship was over.”

“I wonder how Pepper felt about that,” said Clint.

“I think she said that she’d rather just be a witness,” said Martin. “And, um, that if Tony made her a groomsman of any kind, she’d make him be a bridesmaid if she ever gets married.”

Clint considered that. “Okay, well, now I’m a little sad he didn’t call her bluff on that. He’d rock a pink frock.”

That managed to put a smile on Martin’s face. “He does look good in most things,” he agreed.

“Okay,” said Clint, pulling himself up to sit on Martin’s desk, “so, what’s your problem, then? Maybe talking it out will help.”

Martin sighed and looked back at his paper. “Well, other Martin is probably the obvious choice,” he said. “I mean, he’s my closest friend. And my only friend that hasn’t come from Tony or a job. But, um. He’s not great at public speaking, so I’m not sure about him giving a speech.”

“I thought he was an actor?” asked Clint.

Martin hesitated. “Yes,” he said, very slowly. “He’s. Um. He’s not the best actor.” He cleared his throat. “So then I thought about who would do a good speech, and I thought Douglas but…Well, he’d be all smug about it as well.”

“Yeah, that would go straight to his head,” agreed Clint.

“Right,” agreed Martin. “And I really don’t want to have a stag party that was organised by him. I don’t think our ideas on good parties line up. So then I thought about Arthur, but. Well. He’s Arthur.”

Clint sniggered. “How many times do you think the word ‘brilliant’ would be in his speech?”

“That wouldn’t really be the problem,” said Martin. “At least he’d be enthusiastic. It’s just, I dread to think what sort of party he’d organise. There’d probably be a clown or a magician.”

“Oh yeah,” agreed Clint, nodding. “No, you definitely don’t want that.”

Martin gave a helpless shrug. “You see my problem, then? I mean, I could ask Simon, but he’s been a bit of a homophobic dick, or someone from Eagle Tours, but I don’t really know that they’re proper friends rather than just people I work with, and other than that, well. I only really know the other Avengers, and they’re on Tony’s side of proceedings more than mine.”

Clint snorted. “Martin, we’ve all lived with you for nearly two years. We’re on both sides.”

“Oh,” said Martin, quietly, ducking his head. “That’s… Thank you.”

“I know any of us would be honoured to be asked,” added Clint, which made Martin go a very faint pink colour. “But I think you’re maybe discounting some people you could try. What about your sister? Or Carolyn? There’s no real reason your Best Man has to be a man. Or that it only has to be one person. You could get someone to do the party and someone else to do the speech.”

Martin blinked and glanced back down at his list. “Oh. Yes, that’s true. That’s very true.” He started scribbling furiously at his list.

Clint patted his shoulder and hopped back off the desk. “Okay, my work here is done. I’m gonna go and solve some other unsolvable problems now. World peace. Balancing freedom and security. How to keep Bruce’s pants on when he hulks out. Are you gonna come down for the movie?”

“Yeah, in a bit,” said Martin, sounding distracted. Clint left him to it.

Martin came down about twenty minutes into the movie, just as Clint was starting to realise how much _The Matrix_ relied on an understanding of the modern world that Steve and Thor didn't quite have yet, clutching his paper and looking flushed with satisfaction. “I’m going to have three best men,” he announced as he sat down.

Clint grinned at him and raised a hand for him to high five. Martin obligingly did so.

“So, who are you giving the bachelor party to?” he asked. “Who are you trusting with the single most important task a person can do for a friend: getting them trashed before their wedding? Please tell me you went for Arthur, I’m kinda eager to see what kind of stuff he comes up with. Can you imagine the catering?”

“Um, no,” said Martin. “I was going to…” He took a deep breath. “That is, I thought it would be easier if it was someone over here that did it, rather than someone in England, although I suppose, really, I could just do it myself rather than pushing it on a friend, or do I even really need one? I mean, it’s not as if I’m really the party type, and—”

“You’re having a party,” said Natasha without looking away from the movie. “Don’t short-change yourself.”

“There must be revels!” boomed Thor. “You deserve such a thing!”

“Any of your friends would be pleased to organise it for you,” added Clint. “You can’t organise your own bachelor party. How can you surprise yourself with strippers?”

“I don’t want strippers,” said Martin. “Seriously, I don’t. No strippers.”

Clint made a face, but reluctantly nodded. “I bet Tony has strippers,” he said.

Martin shrugged, apparently unconcerned by his fiancé ogling naked dancers. “That’s fine, I won’t be at his party.”

“I will be,” said Steve, with a sigh. “Do you really think there’ll be—”

“Yes,” interrupted Natasha. “Of course.”

“Come on, Steve,” said Bruce. “It’s _Tony Stark’s_ bachelor party. You must know how that’ll go.”

Steve let out a very long sigh and his shoulders slumped. “Yeah, okay.” He glanced up at Martin. “At least your party won’t have them.”

“Yes,” said Martin. “Well, I mean, it depends on if— That is, yes. I mean, I was going to—” He stopped himself and took a deep breath. “Clint, will you be my party-organising Best Man?” he said in a rush.

It took Clint a moment to separate the words out so that they made sense, but once he had, a grin spread across his face. “Oh man, really? Hell yeah, that would be awesome.” He hopped up from the sofa. “Come here, I need to hug you.”

He gave Martin a back-slapping hug that Martin didn’t seem to know what to do with, if the way he ineffectually patted at Clint’s shoulders was any sign. “Thanks man,” said Clint. “I’m honoured. I swear, you won’t regret it.”

Martin gave him a relieved smile and Clint wondered if he’d really thought Clint would say no. “This is going to be the best damn bachelor party ever,” he said.

“No strippers,” said Martin, quickly.

“You’re sure? Not even ones dressed as planes?” Martin looked horrified and Clint couldn’t hold in a grin. “Okay, okay, no strippers.”


	4. Chapter 4

Wendy might not have known who Tony Stark was when Martin first told her that he was dating him, but she’d Googled him not long after the incident at Christmas, the one she didn’t like thinking about because it made a sick feeling settle in her stomach.

The thousands of websites that came up when you looked for Tony Stark was just as unnerving, especially once Wendy started scrolling through them. He'd seemed like such a nice man, once everything had been sorted and they’d finally had dinner together. Wendy wasn’t sure she could picture him blowing up terrorists or getting drunk at celebrity parties.

She certainly couldn’t picture Martin doing those things, or being part of the life of a man who did. Not her little Martin, who she’d always secretly worried about more than the other two. He put everything into his dreams and didn’t allow any fall-back for what might happen if he failed. What if he did the same thing with this Tony?

Sitting in a luxurious penthouse in New York, trying to keep out of the way as a great many people, most of whom were apparently superheroes, got ready for a party as if aliens hadn't abducted three people just this afternoon, Wendy still wasn't sure how Martin managed to fit in here. 

It was certainly all a far cry from Caitlin’s wedding. She’d had it at St. Matthew’s church, where Wendy had been going since they’d moved to the Eastheath part of Wokingham just after Simon had been born, and the reception had been at the Marriott. It had been the usual stress and excitement of a wedding, but it had at least felt normal. Nothing about the view Wendy could see out over skyscrapers of Manhattan, or the red-cloaked Scandinavian mountain of a man striding around the place, or even the fact that Martin was marrying a man, felt normal.

A man ten years older than him as well, and Wendy was doing her best to be open-minded, but she couldn’t help but think that Dave would have been horrified by that. Martin had been his little boy, after all. He’d wanted so much for him to follow in his footsteps and take over the business.

Bruce, one of the few superheroes who had introduced themselves to her, wandered over and gave her a gentle smile, then deposited a lemon on the sofa cushion next to Wendy before heading off again.

“Are you okay, Mum-o?” asked Simon as Wendy stared down at it, wondering if this was some sort of strange American custom. She decided to ignore it for now. “Sure you don’t mind missing the shindig tonight?”

“Oh, don’t be silly, Simon,” said Wendy. “You can’t have your mother at your stag do. No, I’m fine staying here and looking after the boys.”

The man in the red cloak went charging past again, this time with Arthur on his heels, declaring in a booming voice, “I shall see you properly garbed, as befits a man celebrating this noble occasion!”

“Brilliant!” exclaimed Arthur, bounding after him. Wendy caught Carolyn’s eye and recognised the weary expression of a mother who had decided not to even bother asking.

“Don’t worry about your mother,” Carolyn said to Simon. “I’m sure we’ll be fine here with a large bottle of sherry.”

“Oh, I don’t drink much,” said Wendy.

Carolyn went to sit down, then caught sight of the lemon. She stared at it for a moment, then picked it up. “Your youngest child is getting married,” she said, moving over to a table by the wall that several photo frames were displayed on. She set the lemon back down in front of one of them. “I should think that’s a very good reason to have a celebratory drink or two. Lord knows I’d be celebrating if Arthur ever found someone to take him off my hands.”

She sat down on the now lemon-free seat.

“Well,” said Wendy. “Maybe a small glass.”

The elevator pinged and Tony emerged, looking very disreputable in an oil-stained t-shirt and old jeans. “Hey, hey!” he said, looking a lot more cheerful than Wendy felt he should be, given that his fiancé had been in horrible danger this afternoon. Maybe he was just used to that sort of thing. That didn’t seem very good for Martin’s future.

Tony threw himself down into a sofa opposite Wendy and Carolyn and beamed at them. “Pretty much everyone is going to Martin's party, so Team Stay-At-Home is just you guys, me and Natasha. I’m thinking take-out.”

Wendy shuddered. “Oh no, I’m sure we can do better than that. I can make dinner, it’s no bother.”

Tony opened his mouth to respond, but was distracted before he could, his eyes darting up to the top of the stairs coming down from the bedrooms above. Wendy turned to see Martin descending them, wearing a bottle green shirt that made him look very handsome.

“Oh man, Spitfire,” said Tony, standing up and heading over to him as if he couldn’t stop himself. “How fair is it for you to look that damn good when I’m not getting to spending the evening with you?”

Martin gave him a flushed, pleased look that Wendy didn’t really recognise on him, and kissed him. “Flatterer,” he said, fondly.

Wendy looked away, awkwardly. She didn’t really like watching any of her children kissing people, but she especially didn’t like watching Martin kissing a man. It might be old-fashioned, but she did think that kind of thing should happen behind closed doors.

“Are you sure I can’t come along with you?” she heard Tony ask.

“Yes!” said another voice, and the archer came bounding out of the kitchen. Wendy had given up trying to keep track of everyone’s names at about the time she realised no one here was going to be properly introduced, because everyone seemed to think she’d already know who they are. “No fiancés at a bachelor party. Everyone knows that.”

“Aw, c’mon, I can just pretend to be a stripper or something,” said Tony.

“No strippers,” said Martin. He turned a glare on the archer. “You promised, Clint.”

Well, there was one name, anyway. And if she was honest with herself, she knew that the red-cloaked man was Thor, she just didn't really want to think about Martin apparently being friends with a god of some sort. She wasn't sure Reverend Francis would approve of that.

Clint held up his hands as if in surrender. “No strippers. I’ve been good, I swear. Hey, JARVIS, tell everyone we’ll be leaving soon, yeah? Get them all to gather in here.”

‘All’ turned out to be rather a lot of people.

“Your work guys are meeting us there,” she heard Clint say to Martin, just as Thor and Arthur came back in, wearing matching red cloaks.

“Oh, good Lord,” said Carolyn with despair. “I’m never hearing the end of this.”

Wendy looked around at the roomful of people, all gathered in Martin’s honour, and couldn’t help remembering Martin’s eighth birthday party.

She'd hidden the cake in the bread bin when she'd heard the front door open and Caitlin and Martin come in from school.

“Mum! We’re home, Mum!” called Caitlin, skipping into the kitchen.

Wendy gave her a smile as Martin trailed in behind her and got them both a glass of juice and a biscuit.

Martin pulled himself into a chair at the table with slumped shoulders.

“Are you excited for your party tomorrow, darling?” she asked.

He shook his head. “No one’s coming,” he said, and he sounded as if he was fighting back tears.

“Don’t be silly, of course they are,” she said. “We sent all those invites out, do you remember?” Invites with cartoon planes on, of course. Wendy had just about given up on hoping that the plane thing was a phase that Martin would move on from, like Simon had with dinosaurs and Thomas the Tank Engine, and Caitlin had with horses and ballerinas and astronomy and Thundercats and… well, Wendy had learnt not rely on any particular interest of hers lasting until the next month.

“They all said today that they weren’t coming because they hate me,” said Martin, and then burst into noisy sobs.

“Oh dear,” said Wendy, putting her arm around him for a cuddle. “Don’t cry, I’m sure they didn’t mean it. Why wouldn’t they come? Everyone likes a party, and I’m sure they don’t hate you.”

“No, they do,” said Caitlin. “Even people in my year don’t like him.”

Martin’s sobs grew louder and he pressed his face into Wendy’s chest as she glared at Caitlin over his head. That wasn’t helpful.

The front door banged and Simon came in, took one look at Martin, and sneered. “What’s he being pathetic about now?”

Martin drew in a long, snot-filled sniff. “No one likes me!” he wailed. “Why don’t they like me?”

Wendy sent a sharp look at Simon as he opened his mouth, and he shut it again without speaking.

“Oh darling, we all like you,” she said, feeling helpless. How was she meant to protect him from the cruelty of other children?

Martin shook his head. “Simon doesn’t. Caitlin doesn’t.”

“I do!” said Caitlin. “Well, most of the time. I don’t like you when you’re being a brat.”

That did not stop Martin’s tears.

“You two, out,” said Wendy. She sat down next to Martin and then pulled him up into her lap, holding on tightly. “Oh sweetheart,” she said, as he continued to sob. “It’s okay. If they don’t like you, it just means they’re bad judges of character.”

“The whole class?” he asked. “I think even the teachers hate me.”

“Nonsense,” said Wendy. “Mr. Chandler told me he was very impressed with your poster on the Wright brothers.” He’d added that it might be nice to see Martin branching out into other areas when it came to picking special projects, but Wendy wasn’t going to mention that. She didn’t think it would do much good.

“He’s not coming to my party though,” said Martin. “No one is. Because they all ha-a-a-ate me,” he added, with a wail.

“Oh, honey,” said Wendy, and just held on as he cried himself out.

Once he’d quieted down, she gave him an extra biscuit and sent him to the sitting room to watch telly with Simon and Caitlin, then picked up the phone.

She didn’t have phone numbers for all the parents in Martin’s class, but she had enough to make it clear that he wasn’t being pessimistic.

“I’m sorry, Wendy,” said Hilary Mathers. “I’ve been trying to talk Tim into it, but he’s just refusing to go. Even if I forced him, I don’t think he’d be very good company for Martin.”

“No, I understand,” said Wendy, and put the phone down, her heart sinking in her chest. How was she going to fix this? She couldn’t throw Martin a party for just him and his siblings, that would be pathetic and only end with more tears.

She opened the bread bin and had a look at the cake she’d spent the day labouring over. Last year she’d bought one from a shop that had a bright blue plane with a smiling face on it. Martin had squinted at it for a long time before declaring that it wasn’t a real kind of plane, and he didn’t think it would be able to fly because the wings were too small.

This year, Wendy had learnt her lesson. She’d iced the cake with blue, then made herself a stencil in the shape of a Spitfire and used it to trace out a formation of dark planes against a blue sky. She was rather proud of it, and now it seemed that no one was going to see it.

Well, she wasn’t going to have Martin moping around at home on his birthday, feeling hated and alone.

By the time Dave came in, she’d packed the cake and most of the party food she’d bought into tins and cool boxes.

“What’s all this, love?” he asked, pressing a kiss to her cheek.

“Bad news, I’m afraid,” she said. “We’re going to have to go to Farnborough tomorrow.”

Dave groaned. “Oh god, not again. I thought that was why we were having the party, so that we could avoid any more bloody plane museums.”

Wendy patted his arm. “I’m sorry, love, but Martin isn’t very popular and, well, it doesn’t seem that anyone is coming to his party.”

“Oh,” said Dave, and he looked just as down-heartened by that as Wendy had felt. “Oh, poor Martin.”

Wendy nodded. “We’re going to have to take him somewhere,” she said, “and we went to Duxford only last month. Farnborough is at least reasonably close.”

Dave sighed and rubbed at his face. “Why’s no one coming?” he asked. “Every time Simon or Caitlin have a party, the whole place fills up with children.”

Wendy sighed. “Martin’s not like Simon or Caitlin,” she said, sadly. “I think he’s always going to have a more solitary life.”

“We need to find him some other kids who love planes,” said Dave. “When can he join the Air Cadets?”

“Not for a good few years,” said Wendy. “Until then, it might be best not to have parties for his birthday.”

Dave nodded, tiredly. “Fine, okay. Special treats and excursions to every bloody aviation museum within a hundred miles, then.”

Martin had remained a solitary boy even after joining the Air Cadets. Something about him just didn’t seem to endear him to other children. Wendy kept her party ideas for Simon and Caitlin, and did her best to find somewhere new to take Martin every year instead. At least he was always easily pleased by anything involving planes, so it wasn’t too difficult to make him happy.

And now she was watching a large group of people get ready for Martin’s stag party. It seemed he’d finally found a group of people who saw the lovely person he was. As much as Wendy was unsure about Tony as a son-in-law, he had at least given Martin that.

“Aren’t you coming, Carolyn?” asked Herc as the archer started herding people into the lifts.

“God no,” said Carolyn. “I can’t imagine anything worse than having to attend a stag do. I have to spend far too much of my time watching grown men act like children as it is.”

Oh,” he said. “Well, I suppose I can stay as well, then.”

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t even think about it. We both know you’re very keen to go off and be a juvenile for a bit. I suppose it will be a novelty to be at a stag do that isn’t for you.”

“I suppose we could always arrange things so that the next stag do is for me,” he said, raising an eyebrow at her.

She glared at him. “No! Not unless you find some other poor woman to propose to, but I can’t imagine there are that many left that you haven’t already married.”

Herc shrugged. “Okay, fine, don’t say I haven’t given you the opportunity.”

“We are fine as we are,” she said. “Going through all this rigmarole for Martin is only reminding me how much of a faff weddings are. The only thing worse is the divorce.”

“You know, we might not get divorced,” he started, but didn’t get any further before she cut him off with derisive laughter.

“With our combined track records, it’s much better not to risk it,” she said. “Now, go off and have fun, but not too much fun.”

He gave her a nod and trooped off after the others, then Carolyn turned to Wendy. “Now, where’s that sherry?”

“Just a small one,” Wendy reminded her. Behind Carolyn, she saw Douglas spot the lemon and pick it up with a pleased smile before heading into the lift. Apparently it wasn’t just the Americans that were strange. Hopefully it wasn’t catching.

****

Clint had borrowed a couple of limos off Tony to take everyone from the Tower to the venue, leaving Martin’s nephews behind with Martin’s mom to look after them, and Tony with Natasha to look after him.

“Champagne for everyone,” commanded Clint as the limo pulled away, grabbing a bottle and popping the cork. He put a glass in Martin’s hand who looked at it with apprehension.

“Um, I don’t really drink much. Or at all, really, these days.”

“You do tonight,” said Clint, filling the glass up.

“Come on, Martin, you can’t not drink on your stag do,” said Simon, holding his own glass out to Clint to be filled. “That’s not how it’s done.”

“I’m not going to end up like Gavin did the night before Caitlin’s wedding,” said Martin firmly, but he did take a sip of his champagne.

“God no,” said Caitlin. “Ugh, that was vile. I blame his awful football friends. They all thought the golf course incident was funny.”

“It was pretty funny,” said Simon. “I mean, if you can’t abandon your mates on a golf course without their trousers on their stag do, when can you?”

Clint’s initial assessment of Simon as a bit of a dick was turning out to be accurate. That was good, given what he had planned for later.

“Oh god,” said Martin, and took a larger gulp of champagne. “Please, no one take my trousers.”

“Don’t worry,” said Steve. “I’ll keep an eye on them.”

“There you go,” said Clint. “Captain America is going to guard the integrity of your pants. It doesn’t get any better than that.”

They were already into their second round of champagne when the limos pulled up at the venue. Clint climbed out first so that he could hold the door for Martin and gesture dramatically.

“Oh, WOW,” breathed Martin as he came out, staring up at the building then turning to beam at Clint. “This is the best!”

“Yep,” agreed Clint, glancing up at the Intrepid Sea, Air And Space Museum. “And don’t panic, we are in one of the air hangars and not the sea bit.”

Martin bounced on his toes. “I hope it’s the one with the A-12 Blackbird. Oh! No! The other one has the AV-8C Harrier. Either would be good.”

“Do I even want to know how many times you’ve been here since you moved to New York?” asked Caitlin. “I’m having flashbacks to all those birthday trips to Duxford and Farnborough before Mum and Dad decided you could go on your own.”

“Those weren’t entirely useless,” said Simon. “I was in a pub quiz once that had a question about the date of the first flight of a Spitfire.”

“5th March 1936,” said Martin, absently, as he took another sip of champagne.

“But production didn’t start until 1938,” said Caitlin. “God, how do I still remember that? Christ, I’m going to know the names of the all the Pokemon that Jamie’s obsessed with when I’m 80, aren’t I?”

The second limo unloaded and the whole group headed inside to the hangar. Clint had worried that he’d gone a bit above and beyond with the theme, but the excitement in Martin’s eyes was worth it when he realised the nibbles were pastry rolls with tiny propellers on them, plane-shaped crab puffs and tiny glasses of blue and white parfait, swirled to look like clouds in the sky, and that every cocktail on the bar’s menu was aviation-themed.

“I might get drunk after all,” he said, sipping at an Aviation, which was a very pleasing shade of purple.

Clint grinned. “Then my plan is working.” He tipped his Paper Plane in Martin’s direction. “Cheers.”

Martin’s co-workers from Eagle Tours arrived, most of them flushed with excitement to be at a party attended by the majority of the Avengers. Clint had hired a swing band, which seemed to go down well, and after an hour or two of revelries, he was able to stand back and congratulate himself on having really knocked it out of the park as Martin’s party-organising Best Man.

Which was when he’d realised Martin had disappeared. He frowned, and set off on a hunt.

When he found him, he was, predictably, inside a plane. He was looking at the cockpit of a Boeing C-17 with his phone out.

“The instrument panel is—”

“Oh, hell no,” said Clint. “Please tell me you’re not talking to Tony right now.”

Martin started and turned around with the guiltiest expression Clint had ever seen. “Um.”

Clint sighed and held out his hand. “Phone.”

“Don’t get your panties in a twist, Legolas,” said Tony’s voice. “We were just—” Clint cut him off mid-sentence, then turned the phone off and tucked it into his pocket. “The whole point of tonight is that it’s your last chance to not be with Tony,” he said. “Not that you just creep off to call him anyway.”

Martin shrugged. “I just wanted to tell him about the winglets on this plane and then— Well, and then we got talking.”

Clint sighed and rolled his eyes. “Okay, okay, I get it, you and Tony are joined at the soul, can’t bear to be parted for more than an hour, want to share every tiny moment, yadda yadda yadda, but not tonight.”

Tonight was going to be about Martin, not Tony. Clint wanted Martin to feel like he’d had a wedding that was between two partners, not just that he’d got caught up in _The Tony Stark Show_ , and that included being made to feel like the star of his own bachelor party and not running off to let Tony take over this the way he did everything.

The day Tony’s press team put out the announcement about the engagement, every muckraking reporter in New York immediately descended on Linden Airport to hassle Martin at work. Clint had tagged along with the Stark Industries emergency response PR team for two reasons. The first was that he'd been there when Tony got the call from Martin about it and seen how close he'd come to just suiting up and coming to rescue him. Anyone with even an ounce of PR experience could have told him that having the star of the story descend was only going to drive the press into more of a frenzy.

The second reason was that he genuinely liked Martin, but he was very aware that dealing with the press in a calm and confident manner was not one of his skills. It would probably be for the best if he had a friend with him.

When Clint got there, it was very clear that his presence was necessary.

"Oh god, I'm marrying Tony Stark," said Martin, in tones of deep panic, staring out of the office window at the pack of reporters who had besieged the building.

Clint blinked. "Ah, yeah," he said. "You were the one that proposed, remember?"

Martin shook his head. "No, no, I proposed to _Tony_. I didn't stop to think that meant I was marrying _Tony Stark_." He gestured out at the massed horde of gathered press, which went some way to explaining what he meant.

"O-kay," said Clint. "You realise you were also dating Tony Stark, right?"

Martin just shook his head. "Yeah, but it hardly ever felt like I was. Not like this does."

Clint looked back out at the flashing cameras and baying press mob. "Yeah, okay," he said. "Marriage is the kinda step that the media go nuts over."

Martin let out a sigh that made his shoulders slump. "I just want to be married to Tony," he muttered.

Clint patted his back commiseratingly. He could remember thinking something similar in the month or two after the Avengers first came together. He'd just wanted to help protect people, not to have paparazzi following him on his morning run.

"Come on, let's get you out of here," he said. "We've got two choices: the stealthy way, or the quick way. Either we try and find a back way to sneak out of, which might involve a bit of climbing over fences, or we just barrel through the fuckers as best we can."

"Oh god," muttered Martin, with great despair. He took a deep breath then straightened his shoulders. "Out the front. Skulking about will only encourage them."

Clint slapped his shoulder. "Atta boy," he said. "Okay, I'll take the lead, you just follow me out, keep your head down and your mouth shut, all that crap."

Martin nodded grimly. "Yeah, I know."

The shouting started as soon as they opened the door.

“Martin! Martin! Show us the ring!”

“Hawkeye, are you excited for the wedding?”

“Martin! How did Tony propose?”

Clint shouldered his way through them with a vague smile for the cameras, aiming for the car waiting at the kerbside. Happy was waiting at the door to open it for them so they could just hustle in and get out of there.

“Martin, when’s the wedding going to be?”

“Hawkeye, are you going to be best man?”

“Did Tony go down on one knee when he proposed?”

Martin was walking as closely behind Clint as he could get away with, head tucked down to minimise the chance of them getting a decent photo, which meant his mouth was close enough for Clint to hear him mutter, “Why do they all think Tony was the one who asked?”

Clint had to suppress a grin at that. The answer was that because Tony was the larger-than-life celebrity, they assumed he took charge in all areas of his life. None of them knew him well enough to know he wouldn’t have ever let himself believe he’d be able to take that step with someone he loved as much as he clearly loved Martin.

“Are you looking forward to the honeymoon, Martin?”

“When are the engagement photos coming out?”

“What’s it like being engaged to Tony Stark?”

They were at the car when the last question was called out, and Martin was halfway into the car, flanked by Clint and Happy. Martin paused and Clint saw him glance down at his ring as if seeing it for the first time.

He then straightened up and turned around, his shoulders going rigid even as he pinned a weak smile on. “It’s great,” he said, and the reporters went nuts at the realisation that he was actually going to talk to them.

“Show us the ring!” they shouted again and Martin awkwardly held up his hand.

“Tony’s is the same,” he said. “Well, it’s a bit bigger because my fingers are skinnier, but apart from that it’s the same.”

Lights were flashing in his face and Clint could see he was terrified, but he held still and managed to keep the weak smile pinned on.

This was one of the things that had won Clint over to his corner. He might be something of a coward, but when he decided something was important, he stood his ground despite his obvious terror.

“How did he propose?” asked a reporter and the smile on Martin’s face became a tiny smidgen more relaxed.

“He, um, he didn’t. I did. And I just asked him, really. Well, I buttered him up by getting him coffee first, but after that I just asked him. And he said yes. Which was, um, really great. I mean, I knew he was going to say yes, but it was still good— great, it was great. Yes.”

Clint carefully held in his smile at Martin’s usual brand of nervous babble and shifted slightly closer to him, sending a stern glare around at the reporters to stop them from taking advantage of Martin’s sudden decision to talk to them.

He didn’t really need to. The press seemed to be aware of just how likely it was that Martin’s courage would fail and he’d run off if they pushed too hard, and kept to easy, fluff questions.

Martin managed nearly five minutes of questions before giving an awkward smile and ducking into the car to escape. As Clint went to follow him, the reporters rounded on him instead.

“Hawkeye, how do you feel about this news?”

Clint sent them a wide grin. “I’m feeling really pretty awesome about it,” he said. “Tony and Martin are both great guys, it’s fantastic to see them so happy.” He climbed into the car and slammed the door shut, and Happy slowly pulled away, reporters scattering out of the car's path.

“Oh god, oh god, oh god,” said Martin. “Was I terrible? It felt like I was terrible. Did I look like an idiot?”

“You were fine,” said Clint. “Totally fine. You looked all happy and filled with love, answered their questions without anything that’s gonna cause a scandal, you did good.”

Martin’s shoulders relaxed. “Oh, good.”

Tony was waiting by the elevator when they got up to the penthouse, jittering with excitement. “Spitfire!” he crowed, and pulled Martin into one of the long, dramatic kisses that Clint had got used to ignoring. He edged past and threw himself down on a sofa. CNN was playing on the TV, with a photo of Tony and Martin behind a presenter who was pretending this counted as serious news.

“You did press!” said Tony, once he’d managed to stop kissing Martin.

“Um, yes,” said Martin. “Was it okay? I just thought that maybe it was time to get a bit better at it. You know, as I’m marrying Tony Stark and it’s likely to keep coming up.”

“You were perfect,” said Tony, with the note in his voice that he only used when he was talking to Martin, affection and pleasure all rolled up together.

Sometimes Clint thought he was going to end up getting diabetes from living with the two of them. The fact that they couldn't even spend an evening apart without needing to chat about winglets was only going to speed that process up.

Clint put his arm around Martin’s shoulders and guided him back out of the plane. “You’re going to miss the next stage of the entertainment if you’re not careful.”

“There’s more?” asked Martin. “The band are great.”

“Of course there’s more,” said Clint. “Come on, it’s a bachelor party. You may have nixed strippers, but I found something even better.”

“Oh god,” said Martin, weakly. “I’ll need another cocktail then.”

“Attaboy!” said Clint, guiding him towards the bar. “Think it’s time for us to join the Mile High Club, yeah?”

“Was that the one with tequila?” asked Martin.

“Hell yeah,” said Clint.

Martin took a deep breath. “Bring it on.”

****

Martin’s stag do was brilliant. Thor had let Arthur wear one of his spare cloaks, Martin’s sister had helped him pin it up so it wasn’t too long for him and the bar had a steady supply of pineapple juice.

“This is brilliant!” he told Douglas, twirling a bit to make his cloak swirl.

Douglas gave him one of his very Douglas-y looks. “Arthur, you look like you’re the entertainment at a children’s party.”

Arthur swirled his cloak a bit more, in time to the music the band was playing. “Are you sure Mum wouldn’t let me have a cloak?”

“Very sure,” said Douglas, taking a sip of his apple-juice-that-was-pretending-to-be-whiskey. “You know, all three of my stag dos were more risqué than this, even the one my father organised.”

The band wound down the song they were on and there was a brief pause. “I’m not sure Martin would have wanted risqué,” said Arthur.

Douglas sighed. “No, I suppose not.”

A loud, familiar beat started over the speakers, then the cabin door of a plane that was parked behind the band flew open and an air stewardess appeared in the doorway, striking a pose.

“Oh,” said Arthur, staring at her. “That’s not fair. How am I not allowed a cloak for work when she’s got all that glitter on her uniform?”

“I don’t believe she’s a real stewardess,” said Douglas as she started to sing.

“Baby, can't you see, I'm calling, a guy like you should wear a warning.” She sauntered down the stairs as she sang, arms thrown wide.

Arthur jigged from side to side to the music. “I like this song,” he said. “Gosh, she’s very tall, isn’t she?”

“Yes,” agreed Douglas. “I believe I stand corrected on the risqué aspect. My father would not have organised this.”

“Didn’t he like Britney impersonators?” asked Arthur as the singer climbed onto the band’s stage and thrust a hip out as the chorus began. She was wearing very high boots with a heel that looked completely impractical for moving around a plane cabin. Douglas must be right; no real steward would wear shoes like that. And they were very large; Arthur didn’t think women’s feet got that large. But then, she was a very tall woman.

“Something like that,” said Douglas, with the careful tone that meant there was something going on that Arthur had missed.

Arthur couldn’t be bothered with working out what it was. He could see Thor heading for the dance floor, his own cloak sweeping behind him in a much more dramatic fashion than Arthur could get his to.

“Do you want to dance, Douglas?”

“Not even if death were the only other alternative,” said Douglas, so Arthur left him to sip his apple juice and look as if he was above everything.

He downed the last of his pineapple juice so that he could get rid of the glass and join Thor. The nearest table had a scattering of empty glasses and as he added his to them, he spotted a lemon tucked between two of them.

Oh! Oh, he could be part of the game! He forced himself not to jump with glee in order to keep things stealthy, and then picked up the lemon, trying to do a cool sleight-of-hand thing like Clint and Natasha could do, and only knocking over a couple of glasses. He righted them, glancing around to make sure no one had noticed, and picked up the lemon. Okay, right, now he just needed to hide it.

He glanced around and spotted a member of the waiting staff giving him a funny look. Arthur put on his brightest smile to shake him off, then turned on his heel and headed for the other side of the party.

That put him right next to the stage with the band on it. He glanced around, then gently placed the lemon next to the drummer's kit. The drummer frowned at him, so Arthur tried out his smile again, then turned to go and find Thor, an electric thrill running through him.

****

The woman — man — lady — _singer_ finished the song with a long final note, beaming at the crowd as they applauded her.

Martin joined in, turning to look at Clint’s beaming grin.

“Don’t look at me like that,” said Clint. “You said no strippers, and there are no strippers, but it’s still a bachelor party. Gotta have some fun, and nothing’s more fun than a drag queen.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” said Martin. “Just, she’s not going to single me out, is she?”

“Single out the groom at his own bachelor party?” asked Clint. “Nope, no way, of course not.”

“Hiya, everyone,” said the singer as the band started playing a light tune in the background. “I’m Miley High-Club, it’s sure good to meet y’all. I hear someone here is marrying Iron Man.”

Oh god. Martin felt his heart sink through his stomach as anxious self-consciousness made his skin prickle. Everyone in the room turned to look at him.

“I’m sure it’s gonna be lovely, honey, but I’m not sure about an iron man. I prefer mine to be made out of silicon, if you know what I mean.”

Oh god. Martin could feel himself going red.

“I’m so excited to be here with all you lovely people tonight. I’m gonna belt out some old favourites, so get yourselves onto the dance floor and prepare to shake your funky stuff.”

She started up on a song that it took Martin a few bars to recognise as an upbeat version of _Airplanes_ by B.O.B. He glanced at Clint again. “How many aviation-related songs is she going to do?”

“As many as possible,” said Clint. “Well, without going into the super-obscure stuff. Or the depressing stuff. I think we can all do without _Leaving On a Jet Plane_.”

“Or _Airport_ ,” said Martin, remembering a rather depressing night when that had come on the radio as he was driving back from taking Tony to Birmingham Airport to fly home after a long weekend that hadn’t felt even a little bit long enough. How had they lasted so long living on different continents? He found it hard enough now when Tony was away on business for a few days.

“Are you gonna dance?” asked Clint.

Martin glanced down at his cocktail. “Maybe after the next drink.”

“Right then,” said Clint, turning back towards the bar. “I’m getting you an Aviator this time.”

“Excellent,” said Martin, with some resignation.

“Skip! Skip!” said Arthur, bounding up to him. “Isn’t this brilliant? It’s so you!”

“Um,” said Martin. “Yes, I suppose it is.” He looked over at where the singer had now come down off the stage to walk among the crowd, pausing to caress the occasional shoulder. Martin noticed she lingered for a long time on Steve’s bicep, but it was hard to fault her for that. “Well, mostly.”

Clint came back and handed Martin another drink. “What are you saying? Which bit did I get wrong?”

“Well, I mean, I wouldn’t have said drag queens were really _me_ ,” said Martin, and then realised it could be seen as ungrateful, given how much effort Clint had clearly put into this. “Not that she’s not great, obviously, she’s great, I’m really enjoying it, I just mean that if someone was making a list of things they associate with me, drag queens wouldn’t be on it.”

“She’s a _drag queen_?!” asked Arthur, his eyes going wide, and he turned to stare at her. “So, she’s not a she? Or, well, not always a she? Oh, _wow_ , brilliant!”

“I didn’t get her because you make me think of drag queens,” said Clint. “I didn’t even get her because I needed a substitute for strippers, or because I've seen her perform before and she's great. Mostly, I got her because I thought you’d appreciate the look on your brother’s face right now.”

Martin turned to see that the singer was now in front of Simon, singing directly to him as if serenading him. After a moment, she took his hand and pulled him back up onto the stage with her. Simon looked as if he was going to explode with repressed heterosexual terror, layered over with a false grin as he desperately pretended to be fine with everything in front of the various superheroes.

“Oh,” said Martin. “Oh, wow.” He grinned at Clint and held his glass up to him to be tapped. “You’re right, that’s an excellent part of the party.”

****

Tony spent the evening playing Bridge with his future mother-in-law, his future ex-CEO-in-law and Natasha, which was three women who were terrifying and vaguely disapproved of him too many.

Well, okay, so Wendy could hardly be described as terrifying, but the ‘mother-in-law’ bit sent shivers of icy cold terror down Tony’s spine. Oh god, he was going to have _in-laws_. And not just any in-laws, he was getting _British_ in-laws.

It didn’t help that he wasn’t actually drinking, of course. Maybe if he were, he’d be able to ignore the subtle atmosphere of _you’re not good enough for my son/ex-pilot_ that emanated from Wendy and Carolyn. At least he was used to Natasha’s _all your life choices are tragedies waiting to happen_ out of long practice.

“One clubs,” said Carolyn, glancing up from her cards at Wendy opposite her.

Which meant it was Tony's turn. He stared at his cards. Did he have enough points for a bid? Should it be hearts or spades if he did? Why the hell hadn't he paid more attention when his mom had tried to teach him this when he'd been a kid?

Or at least managed to persuade the others to play Poker, which he was a freaking expert at?

“One no trumps,” he said eventually. There was a tense pause, then Natasha let out a quiet sigh that meant he'd done the wrong thing and she was regretting being his partner.

“You seem to have a history of taking foolhardy risks,” said Carolyn.

Tony snorted. “Yeah, I guess you could say that.”

“Two clubs,” said Wendy, which at least got Tony off the hook.

“No bid,” said Natasha firmly, sending a glare at Tony that made it clear what he should be saying next.

“No bid,” said Carolyn, and Tony echoed her with a sense of relief.

“Right then,” said Wendy. “Two clubs it is.”

Carolyn laid out her hand for her, then turned to look at Tony as Natasha put a card down to open the trick.

“One hopes that you will keep a lid on such tendencies when it comes to Martin,” she said.

Ah crap. Tony should probably have been expecting this talk, but he'd let himself be lulled by the sherry and Bridge into thinking everyone would keep things polite and genteel, and no one would threaten to cut his balls off if he hurt Martin.

“Definitely,” said Tony firmly, because this was something he felt pretty strongly about. “I'm going to do everything I can to stop anything bad happening to him. I'm not going to take any risks with him at all.”

“You take risks with yourself, though,” said Natasha as Wendy won the trick and happily gathered the cards in towards herself. “If you allow something bad to happen to yourself, that will upset Martin just as much.”

Tony sent her a betrayed look. “Oh, c'mon, aren't you meant to be on my side?”

She shrugged as she put down a card on Wendy's lead. “I am, but that doesn't mean I'm not also on Martin's side. You should probably bear in mind that there are several people on this side of the Atlantic that care for Martin, and would be unhappy if you were to do something that upset him.”

Tony let out a groan, stared at the cards on the table and threw any old thing on top of them. “Okay, okay, I get it, everyone loves Martin—which only really makes sense, he's the best—but I should point out that so do I. I wouldn't be marrying him if I thought it was going to end badly for him.”

“Good,” said Carolyn, with a decisive nod.

“Christ, I hope someone gave Martin this talk,” said Tony. “It's not fair if it's just me.”

“Pepper and I started to,” said Natasha, “but then we were kidnapped by aliens and we decided he had enough going on without it.”

Tony sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. “Yeah, okay, that's fair. I guess he's the one who's putting himself in danger by marrying me, not the other way around.” God, what was he doing, letting Martin walk into a situation this dangerous? If Tony really cared about him, he’d be putting as much distance as possible between him and the media and the supervillains and all the other sharks who circled Tony's life, looking for a weak spot they could latch on to and rip apart.

No, he told himself for the thousandth time since he'd been forced to watch as a Doombot broke Martin's finger. No, this was Martin's choice. Tony wouldn't accept anyone else telling him what he could and couldn't do, he shouldn't treat Martin any differently. All he could do was make sure that Martin knew exactly what the dangers were, and let him make his own choice about whether or not being with Tony was worth the risk.

This was Martin’s choice—even if Tony didn't understand why Martin kept making the decision to stay. There was no way that being with Tony was enough to outweigh all the dangers and drawbacks.

“You know,” said Wendy, gathering in yet another trick and, Christ, how had Tony not known that his future mother-in-law was a cardsharp? It was a good thing there was no money riding on this game, or he might have ended up penniless and unable to keep Martin in the style to which Tony wanted him to get accustomed. “Martin was always a sensitive boy. He took things to heart more than Simon or Caitlin did.” She laid a card down. “But he was always more determined than either of them. If he wanted something, he didn't let anything stand in his way. He's made it very clear that this marriage is one of the things he wants.”

“I'm not going to let him regret that,” said Tony, as firmly as he could.

Wendy gave a nod. “That's good. And I believe this trick is mine as well.”

Tony sighed and wondered how long he'd have to keep playing before he was allowed to escape off to bed.

****

He was in bed but still awake when JARVIS reported that Martin and the others had arrived back.

“Awesome,” said Tony, setting the tablet he'd been working on to one side. “What's his status?”

There was a pause. “I believe the correct term would be 'inebriated',” said JARVIS. “He is asking if you want him to stay away until he's sober?”

“What?” asked Tony. “Oh no, hell no, do you know how many times I've got to see my Spitfire wasted? Too damn few, that's how many.” He hopped out of bed and headed for the bathroom. “Let him know I've got a glass of water for him, yeah?”

Martin pushed the door open with more force than was usual when he arrived, then paused in the doorway to cling to the wall for a moment. His face was flushed, his collar was rumpled, and he was beaming with joy. Oh man, this was going to be awesome.

“Good party?” asked Tony.

“The _best_!” announced Martin, staggering into the room and letting the door shut behind him. “There was so much planes!”

“That does sound good,” said Tony, holding the glass of water out to him. Martin ignored it in favour of throwing his arms around Tony with a violent movement that very nearly sent water flying all over both of them.

“Missed you, though,” said Martin. “You shoulda been there. There were planes!”

“You mentioned,” said Tony, clinging on to Martin with one arm and leaning to carefully set the water down. Oh wow, this was better than he'd imagined.

“No, no, no,” said Martin. “No, I mean, the _food_ was planes. And some of the drinks, but I'm not gonna tell you about the drinks. That would be mean.”

“I think I can stand to hear a bit about them,” said Tony. He pulled away to press a kiss to Martin's forehead. “Certainly you seem to have enjoyed them.”

“They had _plane names_ ,” said Martin, pulling away and patting at Tony's neck. “I think they were quite strong though, I'm a bit dizzy. There was one with tequila. I liked that one. And, and, and, did I mention the drag air stewardess lady queen?”

“No, you did not,” said Tony, tightening his grip on Martin and wondering if he should be helping him to the bathroom or the bed. He really wanted to kiss him but he didn't think that was a good idea right now, not if he'd been drinking cocktails all night.

Martin's grin widened into something a little mischievous. “She serenaded Simon,” he said. “He _hated_ it.”

“Okay, I really wish I'd seen that,” said Tony, making a decision. He looped an arm around Martin's waist and headed for the bathroom because if he was damned if he wasn't going to kiss Martin when he was this happy and relaxed.

“I think Caitlin filmed it on her phone,” said Martin, leaning into Tony's side. “Oh, oh hey, bathroom.” He patted at the mirror. “Tony, Tony, can you believe we're getting married?”

Tony picked up Martin's toothbrush and squeezed toothpaste onto it. “No,” he said, unable to keep in his own smile. “I really can't.” He handed the toothbrush to Martin, who gripped it tightly then started to brush his teeth. He ran his hand over Martin's head, fingers trailing through his hair. “I find it hard to believe anything about this. It's all too good to be true.”

Martin beamed at him in the mirror through a mouthful of foam, then spat it out. “We're gonna be husbands,” he said. “Husbands!”

“Yeah,” said Tony, feeling his chest tighten. He'd spent his life collecting titles: businessman, engineer, genius, superhero. Husband was one he'd never thought he'd have. He had a feeling it was going to be his favourite.

Martin rinsed his mouth then turned and fell back into Tony's arms, wrapping himself around him. “I'm so lucky,” he mumbled into Tony's shoulder. “I love you so much, you know.”

“Yeah,” said Tony, because he might not ever really understand why, but some things were undeniable. Martin loved him, possibly almost as much as he loved Martin.

He pressed a kiss to the top of Martin's head. “Let's get some water into you, then get you into bed.”

Martin nodded against his shoulder and let Tony guide him towards bed. “We can cuddle,” he said, happily. “Not sure I can manage more, sorry, I think I might be a bit drunk, but—”

“Cuddling is more than enough,” said Tony. “We're going to have the whole honeymoon for more, remember?”

“Oh yes,” said Martin, happily. “And also the rest of our lives.”

Well, that sounded pretty damn good to Tony.


	5. Chapter 5

Antonio was spitting with anger, which Tony should have expected. He tugged at the seams of Tony's wedding suit, eyeing the fit in the mirror with gritted teeth.

“This does not need further adjustment,” he finally declared. “You may take it home. Go and change before you manage to destroy it.”

“I'm sure even I can keep a suit in one piece for twenty-four hours,” said Tony, and received a sharp glare.

“I see,” said Antonio. “In the same way that you can be trusted to turn up to an appointment? Need I remind you that I am making not one, not two, but _six_ suits for this wedding, all of which are likely to be splashed across the gossip mags with my name attached, and if even one of them is less than perfect, my colleagues in the industry will send me polite notes of condolence over the difficulty of dealing with a Stark. _Polite notes_ , Mr. Stark. And yet, we have reached the final fitting and if anything is less than perfect, I have only twenty-four hours to fix it.”

“Yeah, I'm sorry we missed yesterday,” said Tony, starting to take his jacket off. “In my defence, we couldn't have foreseen aliens.”

Antonio sniffed. “I'm sure,” he said in a voice that made it very clear he didn't believe that for a moment.

Tony gave up on trying to calm him down and headed into the changing room instead. When he came out, other Martin was the one on the stool, being poked and prodded at. He looked absolutely terrified.

Antonio caught Tony's eye and straightened up. “His trousers need taking up,” he said, his voice blistering with rage.

“Oh, I'm sure they're fine,” said other Martin, and Tony winced. Oh, he should have warned him against that.

Antonio whirled on him. “They are not _fine_ ,” he snapped. “Every suit that comes out of Antonio's of New York is _perfect_. Even those that have been made without the wearer coming to more than the final fitting.”

“Oh, right,” said other Martin. “Um. Sorry?”

“Don't worry about him,” said Tony. “He's just a bit of a perfectionist.”

Antonio let out a snort. “You asked me for six perfect suits. You shall have them, even if I have to sew all night.”

Tony waited until he'd turned away and then gave other Martin a helpless shrug.

“You need to leave,” Antonio said over his shoulder to Tony. “Your fiancé will be next out.”

Tony nodded. “Yeah, can't see him in his finery before the big day. Are the other groomsmen done?”

“Mr. Barton and Captain Richardson are finished and waiting in the main shop,” said Antonio. “Captain Rogers and Doctor Banner will be seen to after Mr. Crieff.”

“Okay, cool,” said Tony, then bounced on his heels. “Hey, so, just to check: Martin looks totally hot in his suit, right?”

Antonio let out a long sigh and muttered something darkly under his breath. “It's one of _my_ suits,” he said. “Of course he does.”

Excellent. Tony tipped a nod to other Martin and left him to be terrorised by an ageing tailor.

He'd initially assumed that he'd have to negotiate with Martin over the wedding suits. In fact, he'd been expecting a lot of complex negotiations over various bits of the wedding and how much they all cost, but he was especially expecting one over the suits, because for all that Martin was getting used to being given expensive things, there was no way he would consider a ten grand suit acceptable.

Instead, every time Tony had mentioned doing something that would cost more than most people could even dream of affording, he'd watched Martin calculate the expense, open his mouth to reject the idea, then take a deep breath and agree instead. He'd even done it with the suits, although he had baulked a bit when Tony had mentioned outfitting all their groomsmen as well.

“Are we sure they all need matching suits?” he asked.

Tony shrugged. “It will make the photos look balanced. Besides, you're the one who decided he needed three Best Men; are you really going to decide which one is the only one who counts enough for a suit?”

Martin opened his mouth, then shut it and made a face. “Fine, okay, fine,” he said, and that had been that. They'd dropped nearly sixty grand on suits and Martin hadn't done anything more than twitch a little when the bill came in.

Tony had looked at him and felt one of the surges of affection that he should have been used to by now but that somehow still always managed to blindside him. How had this guy gone from throwing a fit over a cellphone to accepting that having obscene amounts of money was just a fact of his life now?

There must have been a moment when he tipped over into acceptance, and somehow Tony had missed it. How could he have missed a shift that big?

It took Tony a while to pinpoint the moment. It hadn't been when Martin had let Tony buy him the bed for his new flat after the woman they'd moved furniture for had given them the little speech about cake, or even when Martin had given in and let Tony give him a fancy Christmas party shirt, because he'd set limits on those and forced Tony to badger him into them. No, the moment when Martin had completely relaxed into being wealthy had been a couple of weeks after they'd got engaged.

They'd gone out to Tony's cabin in Aspen for a long weekend to celebrate getting engaged, and also because Tony wanted to kiss Martin on a sofa in front of an open fire while snow fell outside the window. Hey, he was in love, he should be allowed to hit all the clichés, right?

Of course, it was still a bit early in the season for snow, but they definitely got the open fire and the sofa, which were the important bits. The cabin was set back from the road in the trees, a short distance from town, and once Tony had dismissed the housekeeper for the day, it felt like there was no one in the world but the two of them.

“This place is nice,” said Martin, handing Tony a mug of hot chocolate and then sitting to curl up next to him. “Bigger than I'd pictured when you said 'cabin', though.”

Tony snorted. “Well, yeah. It's a Stark's idea of a cabin. Don't give me that look, Dad built this place, although I don't think he came out here more than once or twice. Mom was more of a fan, and then I came a lot when I was younger.” 

Mom had been more than a fan. This had been her favourite house and she'd spent the entirety of every ski season here. She'd learnt to ski as a child in Italy and the passion had never faded, but Tony strongly suspected that Howard's absence from the place was also a factor in her love of it. 

“I've had some good parties here,” he added, and then considered that. “Well, I assume they were good, I don't really remember most of them.”

Martin snorted. “That doesn't really surprise me,” he said, then turned to stretch out on the sofa, tucking his feet into Tony's lap.

“You're not going to complain that it's too large for one guy and his fiancé, or that if I'm not going to come here more than once every few years I should give it up to someone who will?” asked Tony, cupping his hand around Martin's feet and enjoying how relaxed and at home he looked, as well as the fact that he was wearing Iron Man socks. Again.

Martin shrugged. “I think I'm coming around to the idea that if you can afford it, and it's not hurting anyone, then why not?”

Tony laughed with delight. “Oh, Spitfire, we'll make you into a rich gadabout yet, you just watch.”

Martin gave him a shy smile and raised his hot chocolate as if in a toast. Tony returned the gesture and took a sip, then brushed his fingers over Martin's ankle and took a deep breath.

“Actually, there was something I wanted to talk to you about. A money and marriage thing.”

“Is it about a prenuptial agreement?” asked Martin.

Tony stared at him. “What? No! Why would we need one of those? No, seriously, Spitfire, I trust you, we don't need anything like that.”

“Of course we do,” said Martin. “Come on, Tony, you're an insanely rich guy marrying someone who, when he met you, lived in an attic. It's not about trust, it's about being sensible.”

“It's about saying that we're expecting to divorce at some point,” said Tony. “And, just, no. Hell no. If you're not in this for the long-haul, don't go into it at all. I want this for the rest of my life, that's what marriage is to me.” Disappointment was curling around his heart, along with the bitter feeling that he should have known this wasn't as perfect as it seemed.

“No,” said Martin, sitting upright and setting his mug down so that he could move to Tony's side and put his hands on his cheeks and kiss him. “No, Tony, don't— Of course it's for life, I want you for all my life, I wouldn't have proposed otherwise.” He kissed him again and Tony let himself relax, putting his arms around Martin and pulling him into his lap where he could cling onto him properly.

“Then why the hell do we need anything like a pre-nup?” he asked.

Martin kissed him again. Tony wasn't sure if he was doing it to reassure him, calm him down or try and win him over, but he was more than willing to accept them without worrying about Martin's motivation. All Martin kisses were good kisses, as far as he was concerned.

“Because I want to protect you,” Martin said. “I don't know what's going to happen in ten, twenty, thirty years, or how I might change. People do, you know, you can't hide from that. I want to protect you from me in the future turning into someone terrible. Besides, it just _is_ the sensible thing to do. How many rich people do you know who have gone through horrible messy divorces and you've looked at them and wondered why they didn't take precautions? I mean, I see them in the papers, but you actually know half of them.”

Tony took a deep breath, and managed a nod, because he could actually think of eight different people who fitted that description. “They tend to be the same people I thought were making a stupid mistake when they got married, though,” he said. “We're not making a mistake.”

“No,” agreed Martin. “Still, though. It makes sense. And,” he added, with the note that said he was playing his trump card, “you know Pepper will want you to have one.”

Tony groaned and buried his face in Martin's neck. “Okay, okay, fine,” he grumbled. “Man, you have to stop using 'Pepper would agree with me' to win arguments just because you're both way more sensible and practical than me. And it's not going to be a dickish prenup. I'm not signing anything that leaves you completely fucked, I don't care what hypothetical asshole future you does to me.”

“Okay,” said Martin, then kissed Tony again. “I love you,” he added, as if Tony needed reminder. “We won't ever need it. Just think of it as a redundant failsafe.”

“Right,” said Tony. “And in return, you should agree to what I was actually going to say.”

Martin moved back enough to pick his mug up again, but stayed on Tony's lap. Tony looped an arm around his waist. “And what's that?”

“I want to sign over a few assets and some cash into your name,” said Tony. Martin blinked and then opened his mouth, but Tony didn't let him speak. “No, listen, it makes sense. It does. I don't want you to have to ask me for money, ever, and it seems ridiculous to have everything in my name when, you know, what's mine is yours and all that. Makes me feel like a sugar daddy.” He made a face.

Martin snorted. “You're not that much older than me.” Tony just gave him a look, and Martin rolled his eyes. “Okay, fine,” he said. “I mean, I'd point out that I actually have plenty of money at the moment, given that I barely have anything to spend my wages on, but I'm guessing our ideas of what counts as plenty differ a bit.”

“Just a bit, yeah,” agreed Tony. “You'll let me do it then?”

Martin took a deep breath, then nodded. “Yes, okay. I mean, it's not like I have to touch it just because it's in my name, right?”

“Nope,” agreed Tony, beaming at him. Man, that had been so much easier than he'd expected. He kissed Martin again. “Oh, hey, did I mention my favourite thing about this place? It's got a hot tub out back.”

Martin stared at him, then stood up, pulling away from Tony's grip. “Then why on earth aren't we in it yet? Come on, bring your hot chocolate.”

It turned out that kissing Martin in the hot tub was even better than on the sofa, although Tony had made sure they'd spent the weekend doing plenty of both, just to make sure he had all the data.

When Tony re-entered the main part of the tailor's shop he found Clint and Douglas on a sofa, looking bored out of their minds. 

“How'd it go?” Tony asked. “Did Antonio give you a roasting?”

“Oh yeah,” said Clint, standing up. “I think he thinks we let Martin get kidnapped just for a lark.”

“I appear to have lost a bit of weight since we sent my measurements over,” said Douglas. “That caused a great deal of rage. He's sending my suit over tomorrow morning.”

Tony snorted. “How dare you do such a thing as change an inch of your figure?” He glanced at his watch and then back at Clint. “Hey, I need to pick something up while Martin's occupied. Are you going to insist on coming with?”

“Oh yes,” said Clint, then glanced at the back, where Martin was. “Not that I should be leaving Martin unprotected while Natasha's not here.”

“He has both Captain America and the Hulk watching his back,” said Tony. “He'll be fine.”

Clint didn't look like he thought Steve and Bruce were going to take that responsibility seriously enough, but nodded. He'd insisted on bringing his bow and quiver with him, packed away in a bag that only looked a little bit like a backpack. He picked it up and slung it over his shoulder.

“Are you coming?” Tony asked Douglas. “I'm just going to pop into a shop for a minute on the way back, or you can wait here for the others.”

Douglas glanced around at the racks of suits. “As exciting as this is, I think I’ll come with you.” He stood up, then reached into his pocket. “Ah, let me just—” He took a lemon out of his pocket and nestled it on the top of the sofa.

“Are you insane?” asked Tony, snatching it up. “Martin’s going to come out here and see that, and then we’re all going to be in trouble.”

Douglas clearly didn’t particularly mind being in trouble with Martin. Well, to be fair to him, it was sometimes a bit like having a kitten try to face you down, but that didn't mean that Tony wanted him upset. “I’m sure he’ll cope.”

Tony let out an exasperated sigh. “We’re _minimising_ his stress,” he said, tucking the lemon away in a pocket.

“Aw, don’t end the game,” said Clint.

Tony shook his head. “Don’t panic, the lemon will return to play once we’re back in the tower.” He pulled out his phone and dialled Happy. “Hey, bring the car around, we're done.”

“Bad news, boss,” said Happy. “The press found you. They've besieged the front, but the back still looks clear. I've got the car at the end of the alleyway.”

“Fucking reporters,” said Tony. “Okay, acknowledged.”

The back door was through the workshop, which meant they earned more than a few glares from tailors as they headed outside. Tony just gave them the best Stark grin and a little wave.

The alley out the back was narrow and filled with trash. It curved around so that they couldn't see the end where Happy would be waiting for them, but Tony had had to escape out this way before and knew where to go.

“If we go past the press and let them recognise the limo, they might think we've all left and piss off so that Martin can get out unmolested,” said Tony, and Clint nodded.

“I can—”

Several black-clad figures stepped out of a side alley, all of them holding guns that were pointed directly at them.

“Stand still and don't move,” demanded a woman's voice. Tony froze. Crap, what now?

****

Douglas froze in place as armed criminals surrounded them. He probably should have seen this coming when he decided to walk down a dark alleyway with two Avengers.

“Okay, let's all keep calm,” said Tony, spreading his arms. “No need to—”

“Stop!” said the woman, clicking the safety off her gun and aiming it at Clint. “Don't think I can't see you reaching for your bag.”

“Yeah, okay, you got me,” said Clint. “I'm not about to let you shoot us all without fighting back.”

“No one is going to get shot,” said the woman. “Just, just keep your hands out, yeah? Jakki, get the bag.”

“No names,” hissed one of the others as the bag was pulled off Clint's shoulders.

“Shit, sorry,” said the lead woman. Now that Douglas was getting over the initial shock, he could see that their black outfits were just mismatched clothes teamed with balaclavas and not an actual uniform.

“O-kay,” said Tony. “I'm guessing that you guys are kinda new to this, so let me tell you how this goes. You can take us off somewhere at gunpoint and at some point either we'll escape or our friends will turn up, and you'll all get arrested, possibly also hurt depending on how it goes. You don't get whatever you're looking for from us, you don't pass go, you don't collect two hundred dollars.”

“We don't want money,” spat the woman. “This is for your own good! Come on, let's go. Move it!”

“Ah, I wonder if you really need me as well,” said Douglas, taking a careful step to the side. “I'm not terribly important, I'm afraid I'd just be taking up space.”

“You're coming,” said one of the others, also a woman. Douglas glanced around and realised that almost all of them were women. Interesting, he thought violent gangs were generally more male-oriented. Was that old-fashioned of him? Should he be congratulating them on taking a stand for feminism and breaking the glass ceiling of the criminal hierarchy?

He decided that might needlessly antagonise them.

“Very well,” he said, raising his hands and following after Tony and Clint as they were waved down the side alleyway, where a van was waiting for them.

“Inside!” demanded the lead woman.

“Their phones,” hissed one of the other women to the leader.

“And their watches; watches are always bugged in films,” said another.

“Shut up!” said the leader, then looked back at Tony, Clint and Douglas. “You heard them! Phones and watches off. Just, um, just leave them here.”

Tony sighed as he pulled his phone out. “Oh man, you're really slapdash at this. I'm guessing less than an hour before rescue, what do you think, Clint?”

“I think that's generous,” said Clint, dumping his own belongings on the ground.

Douglas set his phone down, then looked at his watch. “Is this really necessary?” he asked. “It was my father's.” Not true, but if the sympathy vote meant he got to keep it, he was perfectly prepared to make up a long family history for it.

“Oh, well…” started one of them.

“Yes!” snapped another. “Take it off!”

“Don't worry,” said Tony. “Someone will be on our tail quick enough to pick these up before anyone else does.”

Douglas set his watch down on the ground and then allowed himself to be ushered into the van. Several of the women followed them in, including the leader, who banged on the divide into the cab. “Go!” she shouted.

There was a pause, then someone shouted back. “The back door isn’t shut right!”

There was a brief pause as someone opened and then slammed the door shut, then they started off.

Douglas noticed Tony and Clint exchanging glances, and carefully sat as out of the way as he could be, in case a fight began in such close-quarters.

Instead, Tony started talking, “Okay, so, is it egotistical of me to think you're probably after me rather than Clint or Douglas? I mean, no offence Clint, but I am kind of a bigger cheese than you.”

“None taken,” said Clint. “I'm much happier being a small cheese. Well, a medium cheese.”

“Right,” said Tony. “So, I have to ask, what is it you want? Because generally, people kidnap me either for money, which is rarer these days than it used to be given the company I now keep, or to build them tech, which you don't seem like the type for, or because they're holding some unknown grudge about something either I or Stark Industries did. So, which is it?”

“None of the above,” said one of the women.

“We just want to help you,” said another, with the sort of emotional fervour that Douglas had last heard coming from his daughter's mouth when she talked about One Direction.

“By kidnapping me the day before my wedding?” asked Tony. “Yeah, okay, I totally see that. Except for how it _makes no sense_.”

“Don't you see? That's exactly the point!” said the emotional one. “Your wedding! Oh, Mr Stark—Tony—it's _such_ an honour to meet you.”

Tony blinked and glanced at Clint, who gave him a confused shrug. “You're a fan?” he asked, doubtfully.

“We all are,” said the leader. “We've been part of one of your fangroups for a long time.”

Douglas laughed. “You've kidnapped him for an autograph? You know, someone once told me that the best way to get one of those was to just ask.”

“No,” snapped the leader, swinging her gun around towards him in an erratic way that made Douglas flinch and wish he was in a country where insane women found it slightly harder to get hold of guns. “That's not the point at all. We want to _protect_ him.”

“He's got the Avengers protecting him,” said Clint. “Don't worry, we've all got his back.”

“No, you don't!” exclaimed Emotional wildly. “You don't at all! If you did we'd never have got to this point!”

“What point?” asked Tony. “What do you think I need protecting from, if it's not from balaclavaed women with guns?”

“From this marriage!” said Emotional. “How can you not see the mistake you're making?”

Tony groaned and slumped back against the van wall. “Oh, come _on_. Seriously?”

“Look, Tony,” said the leader, earnestly. “You must see that this Crieff guy isn't anything like the people you've been with before.”

“Yeah,” agreed Tony. “That's why I'm marrying him. Because he's not just different, he's _better_.”

“No, he's not!” said one of the others. “We did a spreadsheet, we can show you if you like—”

“No one wants to see the damned spreadsheet,” muttered the woman next to her and was ignored.

“—in all categories: looks, money, social status, traits compatible with you, in all of it he comes out significantly lower than every other person you've been romantically linked with.”

“Oh brother,” said Clint, shaking his head. “This is so embarrassing. Tony, when we tell Nat about this, can we tell her it was Hydra?”

Tony ignored him. He sat forward towards the kidnappers, clasping his hands. “Did you not maybe think that perhaps looks and money aren't what I chose a husband based on? Or that maybe your research is hampered by the fact that you _don't know him_? Who the hell are you guys to decide whether or not Martin's _compatible_ with me?”

“We're your fans!” said Emotional. “We've spent _years_ learning everything there is to know about you. We know what sort of person you should be with, and he's not some secretive ginger Brit!”

“Secretive?” said Douglas. “I think you'll find that's just crippling shyness.”

“No, no,” said the leader. “That's just what he wants you to think. Can't you see? He's done _something_ , some magic or drugs or something that makes you all think he's great, but really he's just using you, Tony, he's after your money!”

Tony laughed, then buried his face in his hands. “Oh god, I don't know whether to laugh or cry.”

“We're looking out for you,” said one of the women earnestly. “We're going to take you away somewhere where he can't find you, where you can have a chance to get the drugs or magic or whatever out of your system, so that you can see him as he really is.”

“I know who he really is,” said Tony, into his hands. “There's no drugs, no magic, nothing made me love him except for him. And he really isn't a fan of my money, we used to have fights about it.”

“That must have been a front,” said someone else, glancing at the woman next to her, who nodded earnestly.

“Jesus,” said Clint, “are you listening to yourselves? Tony's surrounded by guys with the kind of metabolisms that kick drugs off in minutes, and I'm pretty sure Thor is immune to any magic anyone from Earth could throw at him. Trust me, Martin is just Martin. Besides which, he's been around for three years now, do you really think he'd wait that long if he was just looking to get his hands on Tony's cash?”

“And I've known him far longer than three years,” added in Douglas, “and I can tell you that he has never shown any kind of mercenary interest in money. Rather the opposite, in fact. I was also the only other person present when he and Tony met, and can tell you now that he didn't expect to hear from him again after the initial liaison.”

“He didn't?” said Tony, looking up. “But I gave him my number. And texted him.”

“Yes,” said Douglas, patiently, “but he's _Martin_.”

Tony considered that for a moment. “Ah, yeah, okay.”

“At any rate,” said Clint, “this whole thing has just been a huge waste of everyone's time, so if you could let us out at the next lights…”

“No!” said the leader. “You're not leaving here until we've got through to you!”

“Okay, no,” said Clint. “See, we've got stuff to do; big day tomorrow and all that.”

He reached out and pulled a gun from the hand of the woman nearest him, then turned it on the leader. “Oh look, that was easy,” he said. “Almost like you guys don't know what the fuck you're doing. So, now you've got two choices: You can shoot me, which—as you claim to be fans and clearly want to think of yourselves as the good guys, and also have no experience with violence or killing—I don't think is likely, or you can let us out at the next lights.”

There was a tense moment, then the leader sighed and slumped her shoulders. “He's no good for you,” she said to Tony miserably.

“He's actually so great for me that I find it hard to believe sometimes,” said Tony. “C'mon, let us out. We were good and sat and listened to you, and didn't just beat you to a pulp like we could have done within about three minutes.”

Clint snorted. “Who could have beaten them to a pulp, Mr. I Don't Need Combat Training, I Have An Armoured Suit?”

“Shut up, I could have taken them,” said Tony.

The leader banged on the wall of the van again. “Pull over!” she shouted.

“What?!” yelled a voice back.

“PULL OVER!” she shouted louder.

“Oh, for fuck's sake! Not on this street!” came back. “You'll have to wait!”

There followed a very awkward few minutes while they waited for the driver to find somewhere to stop.

“You know,” said Tony, “I think I'm getting sick of people giving me and Martin little talks about whether or not we're good for each other. Did you hear that Natasha joined in with Carolyn and Wendy on giving me the 'we'll kill you if you hurt him' talk last night?”

“Well, that sounds terrifying,” said Clint.

Tony nodded. “I think we can consider me officially warned,” he said. “I'm going to be a good husband, and so is Martin. He got it from both Pepper and Natasha at the same time, so he's probably worried about being murdered in his sleep if he sets a foot wrong.”

“Martin will be an excellent husband,” said Douglas. Every head in the van turned towards him. “Think about it. He's so single-minded that he got set on an idea when he was a toddler and has dedicated every part of his life to fulfilling it ever since, which means that now he's set his mind on you, he's going to be set on you for life; he's extremely thorough and conscientious, so he'll never forget any important relationship details; and he believes that he has terrible luck that you are the sole exception to, so he'll never take you for granted. He'll be the sort of husband that I'm sure my wives wished they'd had.”

There was a little pause. “Wow,” said Clint. “Is that going in your Best Man speech, then?”

Douglas shrugged as the van finally pulled over. “I don't know. I haven't written it yet.”

They climbed out of the van and Clint took the guns off everyone. “I'm confiscating these, as you guys clearly can't be trusted,” he said. “Now, how about you go home and think about the difference between knowing someone and just knowing what their PR says?”

“It's not real love!” said the emotional one with almost a hysterical level of passion. “He's just using you!”

“Oh, shut up, Melissa,” said one of the others, and pushed her back inside the van.

“Well, that was fun,” said Clint as the van drove off. They were on a street lined with shops, with enough pedestrians to be pausing to give them odd looks. Douglas imagined that even in New York it wasn't that normal to see two superheroes carrying enough handguns to start a small militia.

“Hey!” said Tony, turning to the nearest gawpers. “Anyone got a cellphone I can borrow? Promise I'm good to pay you back for the minutes.”

“Um,” said a woman. “Aren't you Tony Stark?”

“Exactly,” said Tony, snapping his finger and pointing at her.

She handed her phone over. “Don't worry about it, you can use it for free.”

Tony beamed at her as he dialled. “And people say New Yorkers are hard-hearted.” He put the phone to his ear. “Hey, Happy, change of plans, we're now at, uh,” he turned around until he spotted a street sign, “3rd and 116th, Jesus, why they hell did they bring us up here? And, uh, before you come get us, can you grab our phones and watches from just down the alleyway? Thanks, Happy, you're the best.”

He hung up and handed the phone back to the woman with a grin. “Thanks.” He turned back to the other two. “Shall we see if we can find a coffee shop while we wait?”

Douglas looked at Clint and his armful of guns again. “Are we going to get served with that lot?”

“Of course,” said Tony, clapping a hand to his shoulder and guiding him down the pavement. “This is the land of the free, after all.”

****

The main lounge on the communal floor of the Tower looked a lot bigger when all the furniture was taken out and replaced by rows of chairs. Martin stared at the platform that was being put up in front of the window, where he’d be standing in front of a roomful of people in less than twenty-four hours and saying his vows to Tony, and had to take a deep breath. Oh god, they were doing this. They were really doing this.

Simon slapped a hand to his shoulder just slightly too hard. “Too late to get cold feet now, eh, Martin?”

Martin flinched, then forced himself to hold steady. “I’m not getting cold feet,” he said. “I just want it to be over already.”

“Want to get straight on with the honeymoon?” said Simon. “Yes, I can understand that.”

It wasn’t even the honeymoon, Martin just wanted to be married. It felt like they’d been getting ready for this thing forever and now he just wanted it over. He wanted to have a certificate with their signatures on that said, in no uncertain terms, that they were linked together forever.

“Funny thing, I never really thought you chaps would have much interest in all this,” said Simon, gesturing at the white, red and gold decorations that were being put up. “I always thought weddings were just to make the woman happy.”

Martin clenched his teeth. “They’re not.”

“It’s possible that level of insight into the female mind is why you are still single,” said Douglas, coming into the room.

Martin turned on him. “Where have you guys been? Is Tony with you?”

“We were unexpectedly delayed,” said Douglas. “He and Clint are just speaking to the police about some illegal weaponry they came into possession of.”

“Illegal weaponry,” repeated Martin. “At the tailor’s?” A moment later, he realised he was being an idiot. “Oh no, let me guess. Something Avenger-y happened on the way back.”

“We were kidnapped,”said Douglas. “I must say, as a taste of the superhero lifestyle, it was rather underwhelming.”

Martin felt himself twitch with instinctive fear, then he pushed it down. Tony was clearly fine, Clint had been with him, and they hadn’t even been delayed more than half an hour. There was no need to waste energy on being worried.

“Oh god,” he said, then took a deep breath. “I swear there’s not usually this many kidnappings and attacks and things. I’m beginning to think Johnny’s right and superhero weddings are cursed.”

“I don’t know, Martin, it seems like there’s a lot of danger here. Are you sure you wouldn’t be better off just moving back to England?” said Simon.

Martin glared at him. “Yes, I’m sure,” he spat.

“I’m sure a little kidnapping isn’t a reason to run scared,” said Douglas. “Not for the man who landed on one engine in a crosswind. And Clint was telling me that you punched a supervillain in the face last year.”

Sometimes, just sometimes, Martin was very grateful to have Douglas on his side. Simon looked unexpectedly impressed by that, so Martin decided not to mention that Herr Bernard had hardly been a _super_ villain, even if his taser had nearly killed Tony.

“If Tony’s had to deal with the police, he’ll want coffee,” he said, turning towards the kitchen. “I’ll put the machine on. Do you want one, Douglas?”

Simon trailed after them into the kitchen. “Sorry if I come across as heartless, I just don’t want to see my baby brother hurt, you know?”

“I’m sure,” said Douglas. “But it seems to me that telling him to leave his fiancé the day before their wedding isn’t exactly going to make him happy.”

Martin flicked on the coffee machine and tried to ignore them both. As lovely as it was to have all his friends and family here, he couldn’t wait for this whole thing to be over so it was just him and Tony again. Well, him and Tony and all the other Avengers, but Martin was at least used to them.

Tony and Clint came in just as the coffee was brewed. “Coffee!” Tony announced with glee. “Spitfire, you just get more perfect every day.”

“I know,” said Martin, handing him a cup and trying to look him over for injuries as subtly as possible. Apparently not subtly enough, because Tony caught his eye and gave him a look.

“I’m fine, promise. Not even a bruise. Just a handful of complete amateurs.”

“We’re not telling Natasha about it,” said Clint, pouring himself a cup of coffee. “Way too humiliating.”

“I figured we’d play the ‘we let them kidnap us in order to gather information’ card,” said Tony.

Clint shook his head. “She won’t be happy about that either, not this close to the wedding. We need to get you married before we can start putting you in deliberate danger again.”

Martin cleared his throat and Clint waved a hand at him. “Yeah, yeah, obviously we won’t let him get actually hurt and all that.”

“Convincing,” noted Douglas.

“I’m completely reassured,” agreed Tony. He put an arm around Martin’s waist. “Hey, I see they’re getting the room all set up for us. It’s looking pretty good, right?”

Martin nodded. “Yeah. They’re finishing it all off now, except the flowers which aren’t coming until tomorrow morning. The officiant is coming at 2 today for the rehearsal, it should all be done by then.”

Tony nodded. “Okay, cool. Who’s around for lunch?”

“Pretty much everyone,” said Martin, with a sigh. “Caitlin and Natasha should be back from getting their dresses sorted soon.”

“Mum and Arthur took the boys out to Central Park,” said Simon. “They said they’d bring them back for lunch. What’s the plan for this afternoon?”

“We’ve got the rehearsal,” said Martin. “You aren’t needed for that, though, that’s just the wedding party. And then there’s dinner out tonight, that’s just family.” Well, the Crieff family, Tony, and Rhodey and Pepper, who were the closest Tony had to family.

“You know, I do think it’s odd that you didn’t ask me to be your best man, old boy,” said Simon. “I am your only brother, after all, and Caitlin’s part of the whole thing.”

“Possibly because Caitlin doesn’t try to get me to leave Tony the day before our wedding,” snapped Martin.

“Seriously?” said Tony, raising his eyebrows at Simon. “Classy.”

Simon went pink and his moustache bristled. “I’m just looking out for Martin.”

“Yeah, me too,” said Tony, tightening his arm around Martin.

Martin took a deep breath. Time to change the subject. He glanced around the kitchen. “Is there going to be enough space for everyone at lunch?” Six Avengers plus him, five members of his family, four employees of MJN, other Martin and his wife… They might have to eat in shifts.

Tony pressed a kiss to Martin's forehead. “Forty-eight hours, and it’ll be just me and you and, like, a _vat_ of lube,” he said quietly, but not quite quietly enough for Simon not to hear. He went a strange purply-red colour and Martin found himself feeling better.

****

The rehearsal began only fifteen minutes late, which Martin was secretly impressed by. The officiant clearly had a lot of practice with corralling unruly wedding guests, and treated the whole thing a little like a military drill.

“Right, the groomsmen and women will all process in, in pairs,” she said. “We don’t have time for that now, just line up as you’ll end up, four on each side of the platform. Come on, get to it. Fabulous. And then we have our grooms behind. Take your time coming down the aisle tomorrow, make sure you’re in sync together, but for now just get on down here. Right then, up on the platform, wait for the music to stop, I’ll do a bit of talking, then we get onto the interesting bits.”

Even with only a handful of people watching, Martin still felt very much at the centre of attention up on the stage, especially with his back to everyone so that he couldn't see their faces. He reached out and took Tony’s hand to remind himself why he was going through this.

“There’s only really two crucial things to remember,” said the officiant. “Speak loudly and clearly, but don’t worry too much about anyone other than me and each other hearing you, and if you have any friends who are fans of pranks, make sure they don’t think it would be funny to speak up at the ‘if any here present know of any reason or just impediment’ bit, because that just causes an enormous hassle.”

Martin turned to look at Clint at the same time as Tony did. Clint held up both hands defensively. “Hey! I promise, I’ll be good. You think I want to be the reason Johnny wins the bet?”

“And, obviously, you want the ceremony to go smoothly for me and Martin’s sake,” said Tony, meaningfully.

Clint waved that away. “Yeah, yeah, sure.”

Tony looked back at the officiant with a shrug. “I guess as long as they want it to go well, it doesn’t matter the motivation.”

The look she gave him made Martin think that she didn’t agree, but she rolled on. Martin did his best to pay attention, but he could feel nerves building up and fizzing in his stomach. He clutched tighter at Tony’s hand and tried to tell himself that this was fine, it was all going to be fine, he just had to pledge his love and commitment in front of a large crowd of his family, some friends, and a whole bunch of internationally famous superheroes. Oh god.

His mouth went dry with fear.

Tony must have noticed Martin’s fear, or possibly he was just concerned about his hand being crushed, because he turned away from the officiant while she was mid-sentence in order to rest his other hand on Martin’s shoulder.

“Hey, Spitfire, c’mon, deep breaths. This is going to be a cinch.”

Martin fixed his eyes on Tony’s and managed a nod. “Yes, of course. Fine. Just fine. It’ll be fine. That’s why we’re rehearsing, because it’s all easy and fine and nothing to worry about.”

“Proper drills are the key to efficient and well-managed responses,” Tony reminded him and Martin found a smile. Of course Tony remembered that.

And of course he was right. Everything Martin had ever been terrified of had worked out just fine once he’d practised a bit.

One week before Tony’s birthday, the first birthday he’d had since they became a couple, Martin had known it was now or never. If he wanted to really do this and make sure that this was memorable, he needed to get some practice in. Or he could just chicken out and buy something.

Buy what? What the hell could you buy Tony Stark that he didn’t already have?

No, no, it had to be this. Tony had made it very clear that he wanted it, it was something only Martin could give him, and with all the times he’d refused to even consider it, it would probably come as a complete surprise.

But first Martin was going to practice, because otherwise he’d just sound like a complete idiot.

He sat down on his bed and clenched his fists, taking a deep breath. “I want to suck your cock,” he said, and then winced and found himself glancing at the door as if there were anyone else in his flat to hear him doing this. Maybe he should put on some music or something to drown himself out, in case the neighbours could hear him.

No, no, he was being ridiculous. “I want to suck your cock,” he said again, trying to sound more confident. Was that right? Was that the sort of thing you were meant to say during phone sex?

Weren’t you meant to talk about what you were wearing? Martin glanced down at his pyjama bottoms and old t-shirt, then wondered which outfit Tony would most like to hear about him wearing. From his previous experiences, he rather thought Tony liked it best when Martin was naked.

“I’m naked and waiting,” he tried, but that just sounded like he was getting impatient.

Should he be describing what he looked like naked? God, he hoped not. Tony had made it clear that he found Martin attractive but Martin had no idea why, or how to describe himself in order to match whatever picture Tony had of him.

Maybe he was trying to jump into this too quickly. Perhaps some research would help. There must be a How To guide on the internet somewhere. He pulled out his laptop and opened up Google.

Ten minutes later, he was regretting everything that had led him to this moment. Oh god, what was wrong with people on the internet?!

He closed the window and then, when that didn’t feel like enough, shut the whole computer down and put it under his bed.

Maybe he should just give up and find something easier for Tony’s birthday.

Something easier that he wouldn’t appreciate as much.

He took another deep breath. Right, okay, this was why he’d set this time aside to practice. There had to be a trick to it that he just had to master. After all, people had phone sex all the time. Didn’t they?

Maybe he should focus less on his own body and more on Tony’s. He could probably talk for hours about that. He shut his eyes so that he could picture exactly what Tony looked like when he was naked and spread out on a bed, waiting for Martin to finish hanging up his uniform and join him.

“I’m going to kiss all down your chest, around the arc reactor, and rub my thumb over your nipple until you gasp,” he said, because that was exactly what he’d want to do in that situation. His voice came out calm and confident, and just a little bit breathless.

Yes, that was it. He kept his eyes shut and kept going. “I’ll run my hands down your stomach, slow and warm, as I kiss you at the same time.”

That was good. Yes, he had this. He just had to pretend it was actually happening and narrate what he would do to Tony. He never had any shortage of ideas when they were actually together, after all.

Maybe he’d jot down a few key phrases to use if he got stuck, though. He went to find a notebook.

He worked on it for about an hour that night, and then again the next night, and when it finally came to Tony's birthday, the rehearsals proved themselves worth every minute.

“Holy shit,” said Tony, and Martin could hear his breathing slowly coming down over the phone. He wiped his hand on his sheets and smiled to himself. Nailed it.

“Spitfire, Jesus, if I’d known it would be like that I’da been nagging for phone sex every damn time I called.”

“Happy birthday,” said Martin, letting some of his smugness into his voice.

Tony snorted. “Yeah, no, we’re not saving this just for birthdays. I’m gonna be calling you pretty much every day, probably several times. I mean, I do now anyway, but the conversations are going to be a bit different.”

Martin shut the notebook—which, it turned out he hadn’t really needed—and dumped it on his bedside table. “As long as I’m not flying, I don’t see a problem with that.” After all, he’d proved to himself he could do it now. Further practice would only improve his skills.

Hopefully, getting married would be just like that. Well, no, because they’d only be doing it once and they’d be doing it in front of a lot of people that Martin wouldn’t be comfortable having phone sex in front of, but theoretically it would be like that. They were practising now so that tomorrow they’d get it perfect.

And it was going to be perfect. They were going to get married without any of the snags or problems that Clint and Natasha were so worried about, and then he could just be Tony’s husband and not have to worry about any of this stuff again.


	6. Chapter 6

If Caitlin were honest with herself, she wasn’t sure James and Davie were old enough for a family dinner out. James had already thrown a tantrum when he realised that they weren’t having dinner with Captain America, and she’d had to pull him to one side and tell him to _Behave!_ in the kind of hissed tone that meant serious business.

When they got to the restaurant, it looked a bit posh for two children. Davie took one look at the menu and screwed his face up, and Caitlin wondered why the hell she hadn’t just left them with their father for the week. It wasn’t as if any other children were going to be at the wedding tomorrow.

Of course, if she’d stayed at the Avengers Tower and gone to a superhero wedding without them, they would never have forgiven her.

“Look, lasagne,” she pointed out to Davie. “You like lasagne.”

Davie made a face that implied he’d previously like lasagne, but was rapidly changing his mind.

“You’ll eat it, or you’ll sit there and stare at it and then go to bed hungry,” snapped Caitlin. “Those are your choices.”

“Oh, I’m sure we can get him a sandwich or something when we get in if he’s hungry,” said Mum, who was sitting the other side of Davie.

Caitlin sent her a glare over his head. “No, we can’t,” she said, as firmly as she could. “He eats now, or he doesn’t eat.”

Mum, thankfully, subsided, but it was too late. Davie wriggled in his seat. “I don’t want lasagne. Want a sandwich. A jam sandwich. No! Chocolate spread!”

“You’re not having one,” said Caitlin. “You’re having lasagne, which you do like, you’ve eaten it plenty of times. Don’t be difficult.”

Davie’s face screwed up and Caitlin gritted her teeth. Oh god, why did he have to be difficult now? “Look, darling, this is a grown-up dinner that you’ve been kindly asked along to, so you need to be a grown-up for it. Be a good boy, will you?”

Davie paused, considering that.

“You know,” said Tony casually, leaning around Caitlin to look at Davie, “back when Cap grew up a lot of folks were very poor, including him and his mom. They didn’t always have any food. He wouldn’t understand why anyone would refuse to eat something if they had the chance. Particularly not lasagne, it’s his favourite.”

Davie considered that. “Okay,” he said.

“Okay, you’ll eat it?” said Caitlin.

Davie nodded. Relief flooded through her. “Good boy,” she said, and kissed the side of his head. “If you manage most of it, we’ll see about getting you pudding.”

His eyes lit up.

Caitlin sent Tony a grateful look. “Thanks.”

Tony shrugged. “No problem. After tomorrow they’ll be my nephews too, right?”

“Oh man,” said Rhodey, “that’s a trip. Tony Stark admitting to having family.”

Tony shrugged. “I’m getting two siblings, two nephews and, you know. A mother-in-law.”

Rhodey snorted. “Yeah, that’s the bit that’s probably most hilarious. Uh, no offence Mrs Crieff, it’s the idea of mothers-in-law in general that's hilarious, not you specifically.”

“Oh, that’s fine, none taken,” said Mum. “To tell the truth, I was reasonably amused to be one, the first time around. My own mother-in-law was lovely, you know, I was so lucky. Do you remember her much, Martin?”

“No, Mum,” said Martin, patiently. “I was two when she died.”

“Oh yes, that’s right,” said Mum.

Martin caught Caitlin’s eye and rolled his eyes and Caitlin had to suppress a smile. Mum must have asked Martin that question every single time Granny came up for twenty years. Any minute now, Simon would say—

“I remember her. We used to thread buttons together.”

Yeah, there it was. Right on time.

“That’s right, darling,” said Mum. “Fancy you remembering that!”

Simon did the little moustache twitch that meant he was preening. Caitlin had to hold in her own eye roll.

“So, what is it you do, Caitlin?” asked Pepper.

“I’m a traffic warden,” said Caitlin. James and Davie were looking bored and restless, so she reached in her bag and pulled out the toys she’d brought along for them.

“A parking officer? Doesn’t that make you Tony’s natural enemy?” asked Pepper, glancing at him.

“I’m a bit out of my jurisdiction here,” said Caitlin, handing James his handheld computer game after making sure the volume was off.

“Hey!” said Tony. “I’ve been good. I only mess with the parking laws when there are extenuating circumstances.”

“There are no extenuating circumstances when it comes to parking,” snapped Caitlin automatically, as she opened a colouring book for Davie and handed him crayons. “The laws are very clearly defined and easy to follow, there are no acceptable excuses.”

There was a little pause and she realised that perhaps this wasn’t the moment for the spiel she usually gave drivers trying to talk their way out of a ticket.

“Wow,” said Tony. “That was incredible. Spitfire, she opened her mouth and your words came out.” He nudged Martin, who gave a sniff.

“Rules are important,” he said.

“Oh, I know, I know,” said Tony. “Believe me, after three years, I definitely know that. I just didn’t realise caring about them was genetic. Board games in your house must have been very regimented.”

“Not really,” said Caitlin, turning to look at Simon.

Martin’s eyes went in the same direction. “Simon cheats.”

Simon sighed. “Oh, honestly. I never _cheated_ , I was just trying to make things more interesting.”

“You cheated,” said Caitlin. “All the time.”

“You did used to be a bit lax with the rules,” said Mum. “Do you remember when we found half the bank from Monopoly in your sock?”

Caitlin certainly did and, from the look on his face, so did Martin.

It was things like this that made her realise that her conviction that she was nothing like either of her brothers might not be entirely accurate. She knew without a doubt that Martin was feeling exactly the same mix of years-old impotent rage and frustration that she was right now, while probably also trying to tell himself that he was an adult and shouldn’t still be this wound up about it.

Over the three years that Martin had been with Tony, he’d become more confident and less desperate to prove himself, which meant Caitlin had been able to see more of who he really was. She’d quite liked that, and she’d been more than touched when he’d called and asked her to be part of the wedding party.

“It just feels like there should be a Crieff up there with me, but, well. Mum would be all Mum about it, and Simon’s been a bit of an arsehole, really.”

“Martin!” said Caitlin, and then wondered why she was objecting to that.

“Well, he has been,” said Martin, defensively. “He’s been just waiting for Tony to dump me so he could say ‘I told you so’. You’ve been good about the thing from, well, from almost the beginning.”

That stung, although Martin clearly didn’t mean it to. Not because he was wrong about her having been worried about this thing with Tony when it started, but because he thought she’d changed her mind quickly about it. The truth was that she’d known why Simon was so disapproving of the whole thing because she’d felt exactly the same. She just hadn’t been as blunt about it as Simon was, not after Martin had accused her of being like Aunty Hilda. It was bad enough that Caitlin had inherited the same nose as her without ending up also being the bitter, angry one that everyone left alone in the corner at family events.

The truth was that once she’d got over her initial surprise, she’d spent half an hour googling Tony Stark’s past relationships to make sure that what she already thought she knew was true, and then she’d started to wonder just how long it would be before she had to work out how to pick up the pieces of Martin’s broken heart.

It hadn’t been until she’d actually met Tony that she’d started to change her mind.

No, that wasn’t true. It wasn’t until the day _after_ she'd met Tony that she started to change her mind. The day she actually met him, she was too busy adding ‘violent and bloody death by insane eastern European dictator’ to the possible ways that the relationship was going to end badly for Martin.

The next morning, after she’d had a night to calm herself down and start thinking rationally after the mind-numbing fear, she finally let herself look at Tony Stark and see beyond the magazine covers to the man who was in love with her little brother.

She’d woken up earlier than the others, out of habit more than anything else. The boys rarely let her sleep in past eight. She got up and headed down to the kitchen and made herself a cup of tea, relishing the peace and quiet after all the fuss of a family Christmas.

And, of course, the fuss of being kidnapped by a super-villain, but she wasn’t thinking about that, not this morning, and probably not tomorrow morning either. Maybe in a decade or two.

She settled at the kitchen table and cupped the tea in front of her face, waiting for it to cool enough to drink. Today was going to be a much easier day. She just had to pack and leave for home without Mum forcing half the contents of the fridge on her, then she’d have the whole afternoon to herself to get things a bit sorted before Gavin dropped the boys back this evening.

The back door opened and she started, nearly dropping the mug. A shot of fear pierced her chest before she realised it was just Tony.

“Oh, hey, sorry,” he said. “Didn’t realise anyone else was awake. My internal clock is all messed up so I figured I’d get a couple of calls out of the way while everyone was asleep.” His eyes latched on her mug. “Oh man, is that coffee?”

“Tea,” she said, and he visibly deflated.

“Ah right, of course. Brit juice.” He glanced at the kettle with a grimace. “Let me guess; there’s only instant coffee.”

Caitlin shrugged. “It’s not bad.”

“Maybe not if it’s what you’re used to,” said Tony, and then pulled a face. “Okay, sorry, that came out stupidly elitist, and Pepper’s told me I’m not allowed any more accidental snobbishness until at least February. I’m sure it’ll be great. Martin drinks it, right? He’s a man who wouldn’t drink coffee if it was shitty.”

He headed for the kettle and put it on, then started hunting for where the mugs and coffee were kept.

“Top right cupboard,” said Caitlin. “And, ah, Martin. Well, he never lets Mum see, but he winces for the first sip.”

Tony stopped and turned back to her. “Does he?” he said, with interest. He glanced at the kettle, then flicked it off and pulled out his phone. “JARVIS, find the nearest coffee shop. Ah, decent coffee shop, that’s open this time on… Do you guys call it Boxing Boxing Day, or something?”

“No,” said Caitlin. “It’s just the first of the four pointless days before New Year’s. Or the first day of the month of turkey sandwiches, depending on how you look at it.”

Tony snorted. “Yeah, I noticed there seemed to be a lot of leftover food in the fridge. Is your mother expecting a small army to turn up for lunch?”

“Martin will end up taking most of it home,” predicted Caitlin. “He’s not very good at saying no.” And he usually needed as much free food as he could get, although no one was meant to mention that.

It seemed likely that wasn’t true any more, not if he had enough to rent his own flat. And he'd given up his removals company according to his website, but Caitlin still wasn't meant to know about that.

Tony considered that for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah, true.”

“Sir, the nearest coffee shop is half a mile away,” said Tony’s phone.

“Wow, really?” said Tony. “I can’t remember the last time I was further than half a block away from fresh coffee. Hey, JARVIS, is there a place to land the suit there?”

“I would suggest that getting coffee would be included under the list of activities that Miss Potts has forbidden you to use the suit for,” said the phone. “And also that carrying coffee cups whilst in flight is impractical.”

“True,” said Tony. “If I throw coffee all over Wokingham from a great height, Pepper will definitely yell at me.”

“The coffee here isn’t that bad,” said Caitlin. “I’m sure you could cope for one morning.”

Tony glanced up from his phone. “Oh sure, I could, no problem as long as it’s caffeine, right? No, I just figured that if Spitfire has been drinking instant coffee for three days, a cup of the decent stuff might be a tiny first step toward apologising to him for getting his whole family kidnapped yesterday.” He glanced down at his phone again. “I can walk back from there before the coffee gets cold, right? No sweat.”

Caitlin looked at him for a long moment, finally letting herself see beyond the 2D celebrity façade that she'd let blind her to the man who was looking for a nice way to surprise his boyfriend after a shitty day. She remembered the look on his face when Martin had got excited about the Spitfire trip Tony had given him, the sheer pleasure that he’d made him happy. Not to mention that he’d given in to all Doom’s demands yesterday in order to keep Martin safe.

Maybe she needed to give Tony a chance before she assumed he was going to break Martin’s heart. After all, he hadn’t so far.

She downed the last of her tea. “I’ll drive you,” she said, and stood up.

Tony’s face lit up. “Oh man, that would be awesome. Thanks!”

“Just, don’t even thinking about buying any food,” she said as she got her coat. “There’s more than enough in the house already.”

Tony followed her out into the hall. “Maybe I should have got Thor to hang about a bit longer. He’s the only guy I know with an appetite large enough for your mom’s catering.”

It had only been a very short trip to the nearest Costa and back, but it was enough to give Caitlin an idea of exactly what Martin had got himself into, and that it wasn't the 'naïve idiot lets world-weary playboy take advantage' narrative that she had assumed. Tony talked almost non-stop for the whole drive about anything that seemed to be passing through his mind, which was nearly eighty percent about Martin. The way he talked about him made it sound as if Caitlin was having some other guy described to her, not her awkward, prickly brother.

When they got back and Tony gleefully trotted up the stairs with the coffee to wake Martin up, Caitlin wandered back into the kitchen to find Simon scowling into the fridge.

“You know, maybe this thing with Martin and Tony will be okay,” she said.

“It’s a disaster waiting to happen,” predicted Simon, and shut the door. “How is it we have all this food, and yet we’ve run out of milk?”

There hadn't been any point in trying to talk him around so she'd left it, but she’d agreed to be part of the wedding party the moment Martin asked. Of course, she hadn’t realised that would mean standing next to Pepper Potts while wearing the same dress. She was going to spend all tomorrow feeling like the ugly duckling.

And corralling her children. “James, sit _down_ ,” she hissed.

****

Martin picked up his bag and gave one last glance around the bedroom. “I don’t think there’s anything else I’ll need.”

Tony was sprawled back on the bed, leaning up on his elbows. “If there is, you can always send a minion to come and get it.”

“A minion?” repeated Martin. “I don’t think I have any minions.”

“You’re kidding, right?” said Tony. “Tomorrow, every single person here will be your minion. That’s the rule of a wedding.” He sat up and held his hands out. “Come and give me a kiss before you go.”

Martin dropped his bag and walked over to the bed to bend down to kiss him. Tony looped his arms around Martin's neck and pulled him down until he toppled forward, on top of him. Tony dragged him up until they were lying on the bed together, Martin resting on Tony’s chest.

“I was meant to be going,” said Martin, not moving.

Tony just grinned and moved his hands down to rest on Martin’s arse. “Go on then.”

Martin wriggled to get more comfortable and gave him a slow, lazy kiss. “The problem is,” he said, “that I don’t really want to.”

“Imagine that,” said Tony. “Not wanting to leave the guy you’re going to marry.”

“The man who is going to be my husband,” said Martin, and felt himself shiver. Tony was going to be his husband. Just the idea of it made it feel as if his chest was glowing.

“Hell yeah,” said Tony, beaming up at him. “Oh! Oh, hey, nearly forgot…” He rolled them across the bed so that he was on top and could reach the bedside table. He opened the drawer and pulled out a couple of small boxes. “I got us presents.”

Martin laughed. “Tony, you really didn’t need—”

“Need, pshht,” said Tony. “I _wanted_ to. Just like I want to marry you. Besides, one of them is for me, you know how I like giving myself presents.” He set the boxes down on Martin’s chest and grinned down at him. “C’mon, take a look, you’re gonna love them.”

Martin smiled back and reached for one of the boxes. Inside were a set of silver cufflinks in the familiar triangular shape of Tony’s arc reactor, set with some sort of gem to simulate the blue glow.

“Oh, wow,” said Martin. “Those are beautiful.”

“Right?” said Tony. “I mean, it’s hard to go wrong with the reactor, it’s just pretty all on its own. Wait, is it narcissistic to say that? Eh, doesn’t matter, it’s still true.”

Martin set the open box back down on his chest and picked the other one up. There was another set of cufflinks inside, but these ones were in the shape of Spitfires, with tiny red rubies at the centre of the roundels on the wings. “Oh,” he breathed, just staring at them.

“Yeah, I thought those would be your favourites,” said Tony. “Hey, have I ever mentioned how much I like seeing that look on your face? Looks a lot like the expression you get when you’re coming, which I also really like seeing.”

Martin dragged his eyes away from the cufflinks and to Tony’s face. “They’re incredible,” he said.

“I figured we should have fancy new cufflinks for tomorrow, right? Something old, something new, all that crap. Although, really, the suits are new as well, so it’s the something old we should be trying for. In fact—” He grabbed for the box but Martin pulled it away before he could get it. “No, come on, give it back, I changed my mind. We’re gonna have the oldest cufflinks I can find. There must be a junk shop with some battered old ones in near here.”

“Oh no,” said Martin. “You don’t get to take these back now. I’ll just wear some old boxers or something.”

Tony snorted. “Man, we’re gonna have a totally sexy wedding night.”

Martin closed his hand around the cufflinks box. “I’ll want to thank you for these, so that’s something to look forward to.”

“Oh, true,” said Tony, and bent down to kiss Martin, moving the other box so he could nestle in close. “Hey, can I just say how great it is that you’re accepting these without asking how much they cost or getting all, you know, how you used to get?”

Martin hadn’t even thought about worrying about the cost. He remembered back to the anxiety he used to feel every time Tony gave him a present that he couldn’t immediately repay and wondered when that had gone away. “What’s yours is mine,” he said, setting his hands on Tony’s waist and giving him a squeeze. “Besides, I do have a present for you.”

Tony brightened. “You do? Oh, awesome, gimme, gimme.” He lifted up off Martin so that Martin could wriggle free.

“Yeah, well, it is also our anniversary tomorrow,” said Martin, getting up to rummage in his side of the closet. “Which means…” He pulled a box out and handed it to Tony.

“A new plane!” said Tony, with far more excitement than was warranted by one of Martin’s little Airfix models.

“I don’t know why you like these so much,” he said, handing the box over.

“Are you kidding?” said Tony. “How could I not? You made them, and you make them perfectly—all the parts neatly lined up, no weird fingerprint marks from getting stuck to the wing by glue, just perfect Crieffy perfection.”

He ripped the paper off then carefully opened the box, lifting aside the cotton wool to reveal the quinjet model Martin had built.

“Oh,” said Tony. “Oh man, I didn’t know they even made Airfix quinjets,” he said, lifting it out.

“They only just started,” said Martin. “I, um. I may have asked Pepper to talk to the Avengers merchandising department.”

Tony ran a finger over the little Lego pilot that Martin had glued sitting on the wing, next to a Lego Iron Man. “And you put us on it,” he said. “Oh, that’s incredible. Hey, you know what else Avengers merchandising needs? It needs a Captain Spitfire model.”

Martin snorted. “Hardly. I’m not an Avenger, I’m barely even auxiliary staff.” Tony had made him his own set of body armour and then themed it with silhouettes of Spitfires, but a uniform didn’t make him an Avenger. He flew the team home when they got stuck somewhere and needed a pick up, and sometimes he flew them to an incident if it was deemed low-risk and didn’t happen while he was at work, which ended up being less than ten percent of the time.

Tony shook his head. “Nope, no, you’re definitely part of the team. It would be like having the complete set of Thunderbirds characters without Parker.”

“Are you— Did you just cast yourself as Lady Penelope?” asked Martin, incredulously.

“Nope,” said Tony. “Shut up, I’m getting married tomorrow; you can’t bully me.” He carried the model over to the shelf where the other two models Martin had made him for their previous anniversaries sat, carefully moving them along so that he could put the Quinjet down next to the Starkjet 5000 Martin had given him last year, painted with the South African flag and the IATA airport code for Mafikeng. “You know, I think we’re good up until our fifth anniversary, but after that I’m gonna have to put up another shelf. Can you imagine what this wall is going to look like in thirty years?”

Thirty years. Christ.

“Oh god, Tony,” said Martin. “We’re getting _married_.”

Tony glanced over his shoulder. “Ah, yeah. Have you just realised?”

Martin shook his head. “It just keeps hitting me all over again.” Every time he thought he’d got his head around it all, something like this would come and knock him sideways. He was going to spend the rest of his life with Tony, trying to find a different plane every year that had a connection to their relationship. Shit, that was going to get increasingly difficult, even with their very aviation-themed lifestyles.

Tony came back over to him and took his hands. “It’s going to be awesome.”

Martin took a deep breath and nodded. “Yes, yes, of course. It’s going to be fantastic. Incredible. Brilliant.”

“Now you’re sounding like Arthur,” said Tony. “That’s not a good thing, I’m not sure I can handle being married to that much cheerfulness.”

“Don’t worry, I’m sure it’ll wear off eventually,” said Martin, and kissed him. “I should go.”

Tony made a face. “Yeah, I know. Just, not keen on letting you out of my sight.”

“Next time you see me, we’ll be heading up the aisle together,” said Martin, and then had to stop and take a long, slow breath to keep himself calm.

“Hell yeah,” said Tony, grinning. Apparently he wasn’t finding the idea of the ceremony as terrifying as Martin was. Well, he was used to public speaking.

Martin picked his overnight bag up again.

“Oh, wait,” said Tony, turning back to the bed. “Can’t forget these.” He scooped up the two cufflinks boxes and opened one to see which it was, then hesitated. “Okay, so this might be a stupid idea, but— Well, so the Spitfire ones are yours, of course, I’m never gonna buy something with Spitfires and not immediately give it to you, I’m not _cruel_ , but, uh, I figure… Something borrowed, something blue, right? And I really kinda like the idea of you having my symbol on you, and me having yours, you know, as a symbol of what we’re doing, saying we belong to each other, that kinda thing.”

Martin sorted through that. “You want us to wear each other’s cufflinks tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” said Tony, then shook his head. “No, wait, that’s a stupid idea, right? Forget I mentioned it.” He held out one of the boxes to Martin.

“No,” said Martin, “it’s— I like it. Besides, blue goes better with my su— Oh! Um. Forget I said that.”

Tony’s face cracked into glee. “Aha! A clue!” he said, swapping the cufflinks boxes and giving Martin the other one. “Blue goes better than red, eh? Well, there’s such a solid start on building up a complete picture of what your suit looks like that I should stay awake all night imagining it and not, you know, just waiting until I can see you in it tomorrow.”

Martin tucked the box away in his bag. “Or you could get a decent night’s sleep so you’re not all over-tired and erratic tomorrow.”

“Erratic?” repeated Tony with amusement. “I don’t get erratic.”

“JARVIS?” said Martin.

“Analysis shows that Sir’s behaviour becomes what might be termed as ‘erratic’ after twenty-two hours without sleep,” said JARVIS.

“Traitor,” said Tony. “Okay, fine, a decent night’s sleep before my wedding.” He kissed Martin. “And you too. Don’t lie awake worrying, yeah? It’s all going to be fine, and even if it’s not, we can always repeat this. There’s nothing that will stop me marrying you, even if it takes as many attempts as Reed and Sue.”

Martin winced at the idea. “I just want to be married to you already,” he said, and he sounded forlorn even to his own ears.

“Aw, Spitfire,” said Tony, and wrapped his arms around him. “We’ll get there, I promise.”

Martin managed a nod and kissed him, then forced himself to step back. “I really need to go.”

Tony nodded. “All right, well. See you at our wedding, then.”

Martin smiled at him. “Good night,” he said, and finally forced himself to leave the room and head down one floor to the guest room where he’d be spending the night before his wedding.

Christ, the night before his wedding. He took a deep breath and tried to firm up his courage. Oh god, he really hoped nothing went horribly wrong, and that he didn’t make a fool of himself.

****

On paper, Stark Industries provided all the security for the Tower and so were responsible for the wedding as well, but Natasha was hardly going to trust something this important to the SI security team. She was one of the first up on the day of the wedding, making her way around the perimeter and double-checking that everything was as it should be. The bouncers were already in the lobby, standing firm in the face of the crowds of press starting to gather outside and with the correct guest lists in their hands. The rest of the Tower was deserted. Pepper had given the whole company the day off and Natasha had got JARVIS to lock it all down so that the only security passes that worked today were the Avengers’ ones.

The roof was rather harder to secure. She walked around it, double-checking that all of JARVIS’s cameras and sensors were in place and working, and wondered if they shouldn’t have put at least a couple of security officers up here.

When she made it to the helipad, where the caterers were in the process of putting up the marquee for the drinks reception, Clint was perched on a railing watching them, apparently unconcerned that if he fell backwards, he’d plummet ninety storeys straight down.

Natasha leaned next to him. “Anything to report?”

Clint shook his head. “No sign of any trouble yet. I spoke to Fury and he said SHIELD are still unaware of any rumblings from the underworld.”

“And?” prompted Natasha.

“And that if either of us ask him one more time he’s going to launch a tactical assault on the Tower and prevent the wedding himself,” added Clint. “I think we’re getting to him.”

Natasha snorted. “Better that he gets a bit worked up than that we’re unaware of a risk.”

“That’s what I told him,” said Clint. “He hung up on me.” His phone beeped and he pulled it out of his pocket. “Okay, I have to go do Best Man things now. You’ve got this covered, right?”

“By ‘this’, I take it you mean ‘glaring at the caterers in case they turn out to be evil'?” said Natasha.

“Yup.”

She nodded. “All under control. You make sure Martin’s—” she hesitated, then twisted her mouth, “not too Martin.”

Clint hopped off the railing. “On it,” he said, and strode away.

Natasha turned her attention back to the caterers, memorising faces and marking down the ones who looked most nervous when she narrowed her eyes at them. Nothing could be allowed to go wrong.

Something about the scene was incorrect. It took her two scans of the clutter of items to realise it was the lemon sitting innocently on top of one of the folded tables that were waiting to be put up.

Ah, of course. She strode forward to scoop it off, then headed inside to check the security there, and to also find a new place for the lemon.

****

Simon had rather thought that the good thing about not being part of the wedding party was that he’d be able to avoid the wedding morning histrionics.

Well, no, he’d thought the good thing about there not being a bride was that there wouldn’t be any histrionics, but Martin had managed to prove him wrong on that one. But then, Simon had already figured out who was the girl in the relationship, and it wasn’t the playboy superhero billionaire.

Still, he’d been there for Caitlin’s wedding and helped as much as he could with all the girly stuff. He supposed he could do it for Martin as well.

Martin was staring at himself in the mirror as he tied his tie with a strange, fixed look. Simon cast about for something to say that might make it sound like he was paying attention and cared about all this silly faff.

“Are you sure that’s the right kind of tie-knot?” he asked, and Martin let out an odd sort of sobbing noise.

“Oh god, how am I meant to know? How many types are there? What if there’s some set of rules for them that I’m violating, or, or, Tony picks one that _clashes_ with mine, or—”

“Martin, calm down,” said Clint, sending Simon a glare for some reason. He’d only been trying to help. “It’s a tie-knot, no need to make it more than that.”

Martin turned on him, his face going that red colour that usually meant someone had been disparaging about a plane. “You know Tony! These sorts of things matter to him; all that fashion and elegance and—”

Clint took hold of Martin’s shoulders. “Deep breaths, Martin, deep breaths.”

Martin sucked in a ragged breath. Clint glanced around at the other two in the room, his eyes passing over Simon and landing on other Martin. “Keep him calm,” he said. “I’m going to go find out what knot Tony’s using.”

“Oh god, thank you,” said Martin.

Clint gave him a nod. “All in a day’s work for an Avenger, sir,” he said, as if he was quoting something, which made Martin relax enough to let out a cracked laugh.

His weedy little brother had in-jokes with superheroes. Simon really had no idea how he’d managed that, but he thought he should probably be proud. Martin had never had much in the way of social skills, not like Simon. Maybe he’d learnt all this from watching his big brother’s popularity and taking notes. Martin did like taking notes.

Other Martin got Martin to sit down and gave him a glass of water. “It’s going to be fine,” he said. “I got all nervous before I married Ruth, and that turned out okay.”

“Right,” said Martin. “Yes. Yes, I know, I’m just being silly.” He glanced down at the glass of water and his expression morphed into one of absolute horror. “Oh god, oh god, oh god I’m still wearing my ring, Tony needs to have that— No! Rhodey needs to have that. And you need Tony’s!”

“Right, that’s easily solved,” said other Martin. He held his hand out for Martin’s ring. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he said, and dashed off.

Martin let out a quiet moan and bent over to rest his head in his hands. “Oh god, this is going to be such a mess.”

“Cheer up, Martin,” said Simon, patting his back as firmly as he could to show solidarity. “That’s what Caitlin said before her wedding, and that ended fine.”

“They got divorced,” said Martin, in what came close to a wail.

“Well, yes, but not for a few years, and nearly half of marriages end in divorce these days. You shouldn’t count it out as a possibility,” said Simon.

Martin raised his head to stare at him. “Oh god,” he choked. “Oh god, oh god.”

Simon had thought he’d find that reassuring, but it seemed not. Simon tried slapping his back again, but that didn’t seem to help either. It was a relief when the door opened and Caitlin swept in.

“Martin, I’ve got the buttonho— Oh god, Simon, what have you done to him?”

Simon stepped away from Martin. “What makes you think it was me? He’s just getting himself worked up for no reason.”

Caitlin sent him a glare. “Do me a favour and go and make sure Mum’s okay, would you? I’ll get Martin sorted.”

Simon left her to it. Honestly, this was the last time he was getting involved with the bride’s side of a wedding. Far too much drama.

****

Carolyn had been to more than enough weddings to know that the golden rule was to keep well out of the way of everyone until the vows were done with and the booze started flowing.

That was reasonably easy in a venue the size of Avengers Tower. She left the corridor of guest bedrooms that had become Crieff-central, ducking out of the way as paramount Martin came striding through with a determined expression, then made her way up to the main floor. Getting through the main room where Pepper was supervising the arrangement of the flowers was slightly trickier, but Carolyn stepped out with purpose and made it through without any snags.

Once in the kitchen, she let out a sigh of relief. She was probably safe enough in here.

The door opened and Bruce walked in, then froze when he saw her. There was a tense moment as they both stared at each other.

“Are you hiding as well?” asked Carolyn.

Bruce winced and glanced over his shoulder. “Don’t tell anyone. Tony’s having a meltdown over which watch he should wear, and I just needed a break.”

Carolyn nodded. “Cup of tea?”

His shoulders slumped. “God, please.”

It took Herc half an hour to find them.

“Ah, there you are,” he said. “I thought perhaps you’d escaped.”

“Only from the heart of the storm,” said Carolyn. “I can’t be doing with any more wedding stress.”

“Fair enough,” said Herc, putting the kettle back on for his own cup of tea. “It does get a bit fraught.”

“Which is why it’s best for us to avoid the whole thing,” said Carolyn.

Herc let out a sigh. “I’m sure we would both be much calmer, given our experience.”

“No,” said Carolyn. “It’s not about us, anyway. Do you have any idea what Arthur would be like?”

There was a long pause as Herc pictured that. “Ah, you make a good point,” he said, sitting down with his tea.

“I saw him earlier out on the helipad, helping the caterers,” offered Bruce.

“Oh, just what you need when you’re catering this year’s big celebrity wedding,” said Carolyn. “Arthur in a helpful mood.”

“Doctor Banner, your assistance has been requested in the lobby,” said JARVIS. “Guests are beginning to arrive.”

Bruce let out a long sigh. “And so it begins,” he muttered, standing up.

Carolyn gave him a quietly smug smile as he left.

“When do you think we’ll need to go out to get a good seat?” Herc asked.

Carolyn let her smile grow even more smug. “I asked Arthur to save us a couple of seats near the front,” she said. “We don’t have to come out of hiding until the very last minute.”

He smiled back at her and held his mug up in a toast. “Fantastic.”

****

The whole room was packed. Martin could see them all when he peeked through the door, row after row of superheroes and the super-rich, interspersed with the occasional member of his family or work colleague.

“Stop looking,” said Douglas, pushing the door shut. “You’re just winding yourself up.”

Martin stared at him, then tried to take a deep breath, remembered halfway through that he was going to have to speak in front of all those people, and started choking.

“Okay,” said Caitlin, putting an arm around his shoulders and pulling him to a chair. “Deep breaths. You can do this.”

“Why does everyone keep saying that?” said Martin, reaching up to run his hands through his hair and then stopping himself when he remembered how long it had taken Caitlin to make it look it not-shit. “What if I can’t?”

“Of course you can,” said Douglas. “If you can fly a plane, you can certainly deal with a wedding ceremony. Just speak up, smile, and try not to sleep with any of the bridesmaids. Simple.”

“The ‘bridesmaids’ are his sister and Pepper Potts,” said Caitlin. “I think he’ll be okay.”

Other Martin crouched down in front of Martin. “Look, it’s terrifying, yeah? But just focus on how much you want to be married to Tony, and you’ll be able to get through it. That’s what I did with Ruth.”

“Right,” said Martin. He did really want to be married to Tony. He took a deep breath. “Okay.” He just had to get through the wedding, and then he’d have Tony as his husband. He ran his finger around the space on his finger where he’d got used to having a ring and straightened his shoulders. “Yes, let’s do this.”

“After all, you landed on one engine in a cross-wind,” Douglas reminded him.

Other Martin patted his knee. “And you became an airline captain before you were thirty.”

“And you got with the second most eligible bachelor in the world in the first place,” added Clint. “Not that he'll be that for much longer. Oh! Hey! That means I get bumped up the list!”

“I still don’t really know how I managed that,” said Martin, but he stood up and adjusted his suit. “Okay. Okay, JARVIS, are the others ready?”

“Sir is reporting that they are all in place,” said JARVIS. “Shall I begin the music?”

Martin felt cold terror shoot through his stomach. Oh god, this was it. He managed a weak nod.

Music started up and the swell of chatter quietened. Douglas, who was processing out first, moved to the door. At the other door opposite, where Tony’s wedding party were waiting, Martin could see Steve give him a nod and then they both walked out.

Oh god, there was no going back now. This thing had started.

Clint waited until Douglas and Steve had met at the top of the central aisle down between the rows of chairs, then set off after them, Bruce heading in from the other side.

Martin could see heads turning to watch and excited whispers starting up. Oh god. Oh god, oh god, oh god.

Caitlin and Pepper were next up. The groomsmen were all in matching navy blue suits in the same style as Martin and Tony’s, and Pepper and Caitlin’s dresses were made to match in the same colour.

Other Martin clapped a last hand to Martin’s shoulder. “You’re going to be fine,” he said. “Totally fine. Just imagine it as, I don’t know, a runway you’re taxiing down or something.”

“I’m not actually a small child, you know,” said Martin.

“Yes, of course,” said other Martin, then it was his turn to head out, opposite Rhodey.

And then there was just Martin, hovering in the doorway and trying not to hyperventilate. Oh god, he was about to go out and get married to Tony Stark. _Tony Stark_. How had his life got to this point?

Even now, three years later, he could still remember every detail of that first meeting with Tony, every moment that had ended with them spending the night together and led to everything that had followed.

Back then, the cockpit of the Starkjet 5000 had been like a glimpse of the future, especially when compared with GERTI.

“Oh, wow,” said Martin, running his hand along the edge of the console. “This is just...Wow.”

“You know, usually I have to take my clothes off to get that kinda reaction,” said Tony. “Did you see the autopilot? It’s got a baby AI in it, so it can do a lot more than just follow a course, it’s— Look.”

He flicked a switch and the autopilot lit up. “Pontius is online,” announced a voice. “Please input course and destination.”

“Pontius?” repeated Martin.

“Pontius the pilot,” said Tony, tapping in a course setting. “Not my greatest joke ever, and I’m pretty sure I’m gonna have to change it before it goes on the market, but in my defence I was kinda sleep-deprived when I came up with it.”

There was a warning beep. “Unable to follow course, plane is stationary. Please start engine and take off, then try again.”

Martin snorted. “If we tried that on GERTI, she’d just set off every warning light and buzzer.”

“If we actually went up in it, I could show you the other cool shit it can do,” said Tony, turning it off again. “It tracks the weather, and lets you know when you’re entering a new ATC area, and I was going to program it to play _Hark The Herald Angels Sing_ if you use it on Christmas Day, but Pepper talked me out of it.”

“It’s incredible as it is,” said Martin, unable to keep his fingers from gently touching the altimeters and then running over the control column.

Tony leaned over the back of the captain’s chair and raised an eyebrow at him. “You know, most people only touch a lover like that.”

Martin snorted. “This plane is a lot better looking than my last lover.”

“Really?” asked Tony, his eyes fixed on Martin’s. “Seems like maybe we should do something about that, then.”

He raised an eyebrow and Martin suddenly, abruptly, caught on. “Oh god you’re flirting with me.”

There was a beat where Tony just stared at him and Martin realised what a stupid thing that was to say, and felt himself start to go red. Oh god, Tony Stark had been flirting with him and not only hadn’t he noticed, but when he did, he’d managed to make a complete tit of himself.

Tony started laughing. “Oh man, I need to work on my game,” he said. “Of course I’m flirting with you, seriously, I mentioned taking all my clothes off.”

God, he had as well. Martin shook his head. “I’m so sorry.”

“No, no, don’t be,” said Tony. “You were distracted by how pretty my plane is, that’s cool. It is pretty stunning.”

He straightened up and put his hands in his pockets, looking rueful, and Martin felt terrible. What kind of an idiot didn’t notice when they were being flirted with by an Avenger? And not just any Avenger, but the guy who designed a whole new form of winglet.

He plucked up all his courage. “Like its inventor, then,” he tried, clenching his hands into fists to stop them shaking with nerves.

Tony blinked, and then the most beautiful smile spread across his face. “Oh, hell yeah,” he said, and stepped forward to crowd Martin back against the control panel. “Want to make out in it?”

“Um,” said Martin, grabbing at Tony’s waist as much to keep himself upright through the rush of light-headed shock at this turn of events as because it seemed like the thing to do in this position. “Yes, please.”

Tony laughed. “So polite,” he said, and leaned in to press his lips against Martin’s.

_Oh god, I’m kissing Iron Man,_ thought Martin in a daze. _Tony Stark!_

Wait, was Tony actually shorter than him? Huh.

Tony put his hand into Martin’s hair and he realised he was passively letting this happen, holding still under Tony’s lips out of fear that he’d do something wrong.

That wouldn’t do. If he was actually going to get a shot at a night with Tony Stark, he was going to take full advantage. There were certain things that you’d regret missing out on for the rest of your life and not going as far as you could with an Avenger was one of them.

Martin gripped tighter at Tony’s waist, pulling him in closer, and let his mouth open underneath Tony’s, forcing his way through the nerves to become an active participant in the kiss. He could do this. He wasn’t utterly shit at kissing, he just had to keep control of his anxiety and let himself enjoy this.

_I have control_ , he thought to himself as Tony made a pleased noise in his throat and deepened the kiss. _I have control._

Martin clung tightly to the memory of that feeling as he watched other Martin and Rhodey reach the end of the aisle and turn to go down it. If he would have regretted messing up that first kiss, way back before he even knew just how wonderful Tony was, imagine how much more he’d regret messing this up?

Martin took a deep breath and set his shoulders, then stepped out of the room. He had control.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

 

Tony couldn’t take his eyes off Martin, which was probably going to cause a problem when they got to the steps up to the podium. Air Force blue, _of course_ he was wearing Air Force blue, that was so fucking perfect, and it looked so damned good on him that Tony kinda just wanted to grab the guy and molest him right here and now, in front of everyone.

He probably shouldn’t, Martin might object to being debauched in front of his mom.

Martin looked ashen and Tony could see his hands were trembling, but there was a stubborn look in his eyes that Tony recognised all too well. He gave him a smile that he hoped conveyed everything he was feeling as they met at the top of the aisle and took his hand, giving it a squeeze. Martin’s face relaxed and he managed an expression that almost looked like a smile as they processed up towards the podium.

Tony gave a couple of the many faces staring at them a wave and hoped he didn’t look too smug.

No, fuck that, he hoped he looked exactly as smug as he was feeling. He was marrying Martin Crieff, he deserved to feel smug.

They made it up the steps to the platform without falling, which Tony was pretty impressed by. The officiant gave them a congratulatory smile as if she had also been expecting them to come to grief. Tony glanced sideways at where his groomspeople were sat in flanking chairs and then across to where Clint was sat on Martin’s side. He raised an eyebrow and Clint gave him a little nod that meant things still looked secure. Awesome. They just had to get through the next half hour, and Johnny would lose the bet, and Tony would be a married man.

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” said the officiant. “We are gathered here today to celebrate the marriage of these two men.”

Oh man, he was marrying Martin. Tony squeezed Martin’s hand again, glancing at him to find Martin looking back with a slightly dazed expression that meant that he was finding this as unbelievable as Tony was.

The officiant welcomed the crowd and Tony did his best to pay attention, but there was a coil of glee rising up in his chest that he was finding it hard to tamp down on. He wanted to bounce on his heels but he kept himself in place.

The service wasn’t particularly long. The officiant went through most of the major bits of the service, then Thor read out a traditional Asgardian wedding poem, which involved a lot more deaths than Tony thought most people were expecting.

“If anyone can show just cause why this couple cannot be legally joined in marriage,” said the officiant, “let them speak now or forever hold their peace.”

Tony found himself tensing despite the fact that he knew no one would say anything. There was no way that anyone could have an objection to this marriage, it was way too much of an awesome idea.

“Sir,” said JARVIS in a tense voice, and for a split second Tony thought his own AI was objecting and he was going to have to melt down his servers. “We have incoming. Hostiles approaching from the east.”

Clint was already moving before Tony had even made sense of the words. “Everyone not combat-trained take cover!” he shouted, pulling his bow out from under his chair.

Martin let out a whimper, but he’d been around the Avengers enough to immediately drop, diving back off the podium so that he was half-hidden behind it. The rest of the room was chaos; superheroes trying to get out to where they could have some space to fight while all the civilians tried to find cover.

Natasha sprinted forward up the aisle, ripping the bottom of her skirt off and pulling out a pair of handguns. Tony pulled his sleeve up and activated his watch, armour unfolding down over his hand until he at least had a repulsor to protect Martin with.

The windows smashed in with a shattering of glass fragments and a host of green-cloaked figures soared through. Tony raised his hand and blasted the nearest one, which sent it soaring back out onto the helipad.

“Prepare for Doom!” announced a voice and Doctor Doom came in behind his bots, carrying an over-sized gun that it took Tony a moment to recognise as a souped-up taser.

“You fucking asshole!” said Tony, stepping to put himself between Doom and Martin. “This is my wedding!”

“As ye reap, so shall ye sow!” declaimed Doom. “You have shown needless aggression towards Doom, and now Doom shall return the favour!”

An arrow whipped by his head and buried itself in the Doombot behind him, who had been lowering its taser to fire at the part of the crowd that hadn't already found cover. There was a small explosion and the bot dropped like a stone to crumple on the ground.

“Doom will not allow his Doombots to be harmed!” announced Doom, and fired his taser at Clint. It hit him solidly in the chest and he seized, all his muscles locking tight as he collapsed under the burst of electricity. Natasha sent a burst of bullets at Doom but they pinged uselessly off his armour.

“Cease!” He commanded, turning his taser to aim straight at Tony’s chest instead. “Cease the struggle, or Doom shall target Tony Stark’s heart!”

Ah crap. Everyone froze, all too aware of what had happened last time Tony had taken a taser bolt to the arc reactor. Behind him, he heard Martin making a noise that was part-terror, part-rage.

Anger surged up in Tony's chest. Oh no, screw this. He wasn’t going to let anyone stop him from marrying Martin, not when they’d got so close. He suddenly realised that he wasn’t as fine with just having another ceremony next week if this one failed as he’d been telling anyone. He wanted to be married to Martin, and he wanted to do it now, today. He wasn’t about to let some idiotic megalomaniac in a mask fuck with that.

He charged up his repulsor.

****

It had all been going so well. Too well, probably. Martin’s life didn’t work like that. Tony had looked even more stunningly handsome than he usually did in a burgundy suit that only made him look a little bit like a modern devil, and part of that was probably down to his goatee. He’d not been able to keep his eyes off Martin, staring at him with such a look of warm pleasure that Martin almost had to pinch himself to make sure he wasn’t dreaming this. How the hell had he managed to make anyone feel like that about him, let alone someone as awesome as Tony?

It had all been going too well.

The thought burnt into Martin’s mind as he cowered behind the staging, staring up at Tony above him and trying to get his brain to work beyond that one phrase. He was aware of Douglas and other Martin crouched at Clint’s side, staring at his twitching body and clearly trying to work out how they could help him, and Caitlin hustling Davie and James out of the room with her hands clenched around their wrists as they stared back with obvious interest.

On the other side of the platform, he could see Steve standing with one hand on Bruce’s arm, clearly warning him not to change just yet, while Rhodey had pulled a gun out from under his suit jacket.

No one was willing to move though, not while Doom had his taser pointed directly at Tony’s arc reactor. No one, that was, except for Tony.

There was a whirr as his repulsor powered up. “This is my god-damn wedding day, you asshole,” he gritted.

“Doom was not invited,” said Doom. “He has brought you a gift anyway, however.” He hefted the gun meaningfully.

“Hang on,” said Tony, squinting at the gun. “Isn’t that one of Hans’s stupid tasers? _You’re_ his mysterious investor? Man, I thought your Doombots were stupid, but those Electro-Ninja guys were ludicrous.”

Doom twitched. “You advised Doom to try new weaponry. This has proven most effective against you in the past! Herr Bernard is a trusted colleague!”

Tony snorted. “Right, that’s why he’s still in prison nearly a year later and you haven’t broken him out. And, like, it’s normal prison, not The Raft. Even your shitty bots could break a guy out of there easily enough.”

Doom looked as awkward as a man in a mask could look.

Tony let out a burst of laughter. “Oh man, poor Hans. Not even super-villains can stand him.”

“Doom is not here for chatter!” announced Doom, throwing his head back and raising the taser dramatically. “Doom is here for revenge!”

Oh god, Tony was going to get shot and have a heart attack, and maybe die, and even if he survived they still weren’t going to get married today. They’d have to keep trying and trying, just like Reed and Sue Storm, and that meant having Simon over here again and again and oh god.

“Hey! It’s not nice to turn up uninvited!” said a voice Martin hadn’t expected, in a tone he hadn’t heard since Helsinki. Something small and yellow hit Doom in the mask, knocking his head back and distracting his attention just long enough for Tony to fire his repulsor at him, sending him flying back through the window. Or where the window used to be, anyway.

As he flew, his taser went off, missing Tony by several feet but heading directly towards where Arthur was standing, arm still raised from throwing whatever it was he’d distracted Doom with.

Thor let out a roar and leapt in front of him, taking the electrical charge solidly on his chest. He surged with the power of the electricity running through him, then threw Mjolnir after Doom.

“I am Thor, God of Thunder! Your little lightning cannot harm me!” he bellowed, and soared out onto the helipad after Doom.

“Flame on!” shouted Johnny, and his flames lit up as he rushed past Martin at one of the Doombots.

“It’s clobberin’ time!” announced Ben Grimm, throwing himself into the fray as all the assembled superheroes attacked the Doombots. A line of searing red light from Cyclops cut another Doombot in two, there was the shriek of tearing metal as Wolverine’s blades sank through a Doombot’s armour, and Beast bellowed as he leapt on top of one and tore its head off.

Tony glanced about and then dropped down off the stage to crouch beside Martin. “You okay, Spitfire?”

“Fine,” said Martin, clutching at Tony’s sleeve. “Fine. Definitely fine. Fine. Um. Are you?”

Tony grinned. “I’m fine too, but only one brand of fine, not all four like you.” He leaned in and kissed Martin, encircling his shoulders with an arm. “We’re just gonna stay down here while the others sort this out, yeah?”

Martin was aware that Tony was crowding around him in order to act as a shield, but he couldn’t bring himself to mind. If the staging had been any higher, he’d have tried to crawl under it. He could see Bruce crouching next to Clint, ignoring the fight with hunched shoulders as he helped him sit up. Clint seemed to be reaching for his bow, but his hand was shaking too much to get a grip on it. Douglas and other Martin had disappeared, but when Martin glanced around, he could see several figures huddled behind the first row of seats that looked as if it might include them.

The fight died down quickly enough, or at least moved out of the room and onto the helipad as the combined superheroes trounced the Doombots. The front of the room was a mess, bits of broken Doombots and splintered chairs scattered around, and it looked like someone had used some of the floral arrangements as a weapon at some point.

Martin slumped into Tony’s body, shifting his grip to clutch at his arm rather than his sleeve. “This was our wedding,” he said, with misery.

“I know,” said Tony, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “I know.”

Martin let himself stay there for a moment, then pulled away, glancing around. “Where’s Mum? Is anyone hurt?”

Most of the rows of chairs were now empty and Martin could see that all the doors leading out of the room were open. Most people had escaped as soon as they could, which was probably the sensible thing to have done.

“Mum-o’s fine,” said Simon, straightening up from behind the first row of chairs and then reaching down to help Mum up.

“Oh dear,” she said, adjusting her blouse and then looking around at the carnage. “What a mess. Really, that man is terribly rude. First interrupting Christmas, and now a wedding.”

“Yeah, he’s a total ass,” agreed Tony. He let go of Martin as they both stood up, then took hold of his hand again, as if unwilling to let him go entirely. Martin could sympathise. He clenched his fingers tighter around Tony's. “JARVIS, what’s the report?”

“All Doombots are neutralised, and Doctor Doom has flown away from the building,” said JARVIS. “Most of the guests are descending to the lobby via the stairs, but are still in the building. I have informed them that the fight is over and that they are free to return. None of them are hurt and it would seem that the worst injury was to Agent Barton.”

Clint waved a weak hand. “No sweat, I’m totally fine.”

“You need to get checked out by a proper medical professional,” said Bruce.

“Nah,” said Clint. “Just prop me in a chair, I’m good. Not the first time I’ve been tasered.”

Bruce let out an exasperated noise. “Which is one of many reasons why—” he started, and then abruptly gave up. “I hate this team,” he muttered to himself as he got an arm under Clint’s shoulder and started to help him up.

The officiant was also getting up, pulling herself out from under the table that the marriage certificate was on, waiting for Martin and Tony to sign it. God, they’d got _so close_.

“Well,” she said, dusting down her clothes, “I can’t say that part of me wasn’t expecting something like this.”

“I hate to say ‘I told you so’,” said Johnny, flying back through an empty window frame and then letting his flame die away as he landed, “but, you know. I did tell you so.”

Clint sent him a rude gesture with a weak hand.

Tony sighed. “Same time, next week?” he asked the officiant.

“No,” said Martin, a wave of anger welling up in him. He stamped his foot. “No! We’re still doing this. I want to be _married_.” He stepped back up onto the stage, dragging Tony with him. “We can just skip ahead to the main bit, right? Just get it done. We don’t need all the people and the rest of it.”

The officiant glanced at her watch and made a face. “I’m meant to be at a wedding in Washington Heights in forty-five minutes. It was going to be tight as it was.”

“Someone can give you a lift,” said Tony. “We’ve got the quinjet, the Fantasticar and the X-Men’s Blackbird, you can take your pick.”

“Please?” added Martin, and she sighed and relented.

“Jesus, fine. We’ll need to be quick, though. Who’s got the rings?”

Martin glanced around to see that other Martin had crawled back out from wherever he’d been hiding.

“Here,” he said, reaching into his pocket.

“Anyone see where the hell Rhodey got to?” asked Tony.

“Hold your horses, I’m here,” said Rhodey, making his way over. “Still got your ring and everything.”

The officiant glanced at them both, then nodded. “Right, then, uh, do you, Martin Crieff, take Anthony Edward Stark to be your wedded husband to live together in marriage? Do you promise to love him, comfort him, honour and keep him for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and health and forsaking all others, be faithful only to him so long as you both shall live?”

“I do,” said Martin, with all the firmness that he could manage. It felt like he might be crushing Tony’s fingers in his grip, but he couldn’t seem to make himself let go, not when they’d come so close to not having this moment. He was vaguely aware of everyone who was left from the wedding moving closer to the stage, crowding around it to watch.

“And do you, Anthony Edward Stark, take Martin Crieff to be your wedded husband to live together in marriage? Do you promise to love him, comfort him, honour and keep him for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and health and forsaking all others, be faithful only to him so long as you both shall live?”

“Damn right I do,” said Tony, which caused a smattering of amusement.

The officiant gave him a mild glare that said she wasn’t interested in ad libs and ploughed on. “Rings are an ancient symbol of unity and completeness. As day follows night and night follows day, your two lives are now joined in one unbroken circle,” she said, giving other Martin and Rhodey significant looks until they came forward and handed the rings to her.

She held them out in the palm of her hand and looked at Martin, and he realised he was going to have to let go of Tony’s hand for this bit. It took him a few moments to unclench his fingers, then he took the ring and turned to face Tony, who was giving him the kind of warm, easy smile that usually only appeared when they’d spent a few hours curled up in bed together.

“With this ring, I pledge my love and life to you,” Martin managed, then fitted it on Tony’s finger with shaking hands. The beaming grin he got in return made his knees go weak and he had to draw in a breath to keep himself upright.

Tony took the other ring. “With this ring, I pledge my love and life to you,” he repeated, and pushed it onto Martin’s finger. Martin clutched at his hand and couldn’t take his eyes away from Tony’s, feeling his face light up with a smile. Oh god. They’d done it, they’d actually done it.

“And now by the power vested in me by the State of New York, I pronounce you married,” said the officiant. “You may share the first kiss of your marriage.”

When they’d talked about it in advance, they’d agreed that they’d keep the kiss to a minimal peck because Martin hadn’t really been sure about anything more than that in front of a crowd that included his mother, but he wasn’t really surprised when Tony grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him in for a proper kiss. In fact, he held on just as tightly and kissed Tony back with every ounce of the relief rolling through him. They’d made it. They were _married_.

“Hah!” he heard Clint cackle. “Johnny, you owe me and Natasha a hundred bucks each. Right through the vows and pronounced married, motherfucking YES!”

There was a sigh from the officiant. “Ladies and Gentlemen: It is with great pleasure that I introduce to you for the first time as a married couple, Martin and Tony Stark-Crieff.”

There was cheers and applause, but Tony was still kissing him and Martin wasn’t interested in stopping him, not quite yet, so he ignored it. He’d just married Tony Stark; everything else could wait.

****

Tony had never been more grateful for Pepper. She’d done the sensible thing and run for cover the moment JARVIS had announced Doom’s arrival, but she hadn’t gone far and was one of the first guests to come back. When he came up for air from kissing Martin and beamed around at the crowd she was already there, beaming at him from the back and making it very clear how happy for him she was.

Then she glanced around at the destruction in the room and the pile of broken Doombots outside, and took charge.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, the marquee outside appears to be untouched, so I suggest we all move outside and start the drinks reception while Martin and Tony take a few photos and we get all this cleared up and prepared for the evening reception,” she announced. “Steve, could you organise some people to get rid of the Doombot debris? The staff can take care of the rest, but I’m not sure they should be messing about with anything that might explode on them. Natasha, Thor, the other guests will be making their way back up here, can you direct them outside as they do so?”

Tony left her to give orders and just grinned down at Martin—his husband!—who beamed back. “We made it,” he said.

“Yeah,” agreed Martin. “I was so scared for a bit there, I thought you were going to get tasered again.”

Tony wasn’t sure how long he could keep smiling this much without his jaw starting to ache, but he was willing to push through the pain on that one. “Thanks to Arthur,” he said. “Who’da seen that one coming?”

“Yeah,” agreed Martin, and he glanced around. “What was it he—” He cut off abruptly, then strode over and picked up the lemon that Arthur had distracted Doom with.

Ah, crap.

He stared at it for a very long moment, then looked around at everyone. “Which of you bastards were playing the Travelling Lemon at _my wedding_?” he asked, interrupted Pepper.

There was an awkward pause as his glare went around the crowd, and several people shifted guiltily. Martin’s gaze fell on Douglas. “You know how I feel about this game. How could you?”

Douglas held his hands up. “The lemon was already in play before we arrived in the country.”

Martin’s eyes widened. “You’ve all been playing it for days? Without telling me?”

“Aw, look man, it saved the day, didn’t it?” said Clint.

Martin narrowed his eyes at him, then shoved the lemon into his pocket and turned back to Tony. “I suppose you knew about this?”

Tony just shrugged. “Didn’t seem to be hurting anyone.”

The look Martin gave him made it seem that he didn’t completely agree, but he did fall silent and let Pepper finish marshalling her troops.

Tony and Martin were sent off to one of the balconies to have photos taken, a handful of which Pepper got the PR department to release to the press, who were still circling the Tower like vermin and coming up with increasingly dramatic rumours based on the few bits of the fight with Doom that they’d caught on film. By the time they got back, Pepper had the staff tidying up the mess from the fight and rearranging all the chairs around scattered tables, ready for the reception.

Everyone else was still out on the helipad sipping drinks, eating canapés and looking as if they’d managed to forget about the fight in favour of getting quietly pissed. Tony approved of that, even if he couldn’t join them.

“Can we find Clint and check he’s still okay?” asked Martin as they headed to join them.

“Sure,” said Tony. “Be prepared though, every fucker here is going to want to talk to us, so getting through the crowd might be tricky.”

Martin squared his shoulders as if going into battle. “Bring it on.”

They very nearly didn’t make it through. Tony got stopped by Reed Richards for a lengthy ramble of congratulations that mostly seemed to be sour grapes over the fact that they’d managed it first time, and when he turned back he found that Martin had been cornered by three of his co-workers, all of whom seemed to be trying to get him to set them up with a different superhero.

“Okay,” said Tony, pulling at Martin’s hand which was still firmly in his. “I see Clint over there, c’mon.”

Martin managed a weak smile at his colleagues and then Tony tugged him through the crowd, throwing grins out at anyone who tried to talk to them but not stopping to chat.

Clint was propped up on two chairs next to a table. He looked a bit pale but he was smiling so Tony figured he was fine.

“Hey, hey, it’s the Starks!” he greeted them, raising his glass.

“Stark-Crieffs,” corrected Tony. They'd gone for the clunky double-barrelled version partly because Martin didn't want to stop being a Crieff. Tony was damned if he was going to let people erase that out of laziness or because the Stark part was the well-known bit.

“Are you okay?” asked Martin.

Clint waved a hand. “Totally fine. I had a couple of pills, and a couple of drinks, and I’ve got a couple of minions bringing me nibbles.”

One of Martin’s nephews—Tony was still working on telling them apart—squirmed under Martin’s arm and presented Clint with a handful of mini quiches.

Clint’s eyes lit up. “Oh, good haul! Excellent going, kid.” He took them and gave the boy a high-five.

Martin frowned. “Should you be drinking if you’ve had pills?”

“Oh yeah,” said Clint. “I definitely should. Especially now that we’ve got you all married and I don’t have to be worrying about one of you being attacked.”

The other nephew appeared cradling a glass in both hands. “Here you go, Hawkeye. I had to promise the waiter it wasn’t for me.”

“Fantastic,” said Clint, downing the last of his current glass and setting it to one side so he could take the new one.

For a moment, all attention was on Clint’s drink—except for Tony’s, which is why he was the only one who saw Martin reach into his pocket, take out the lemon, and carefully slide it amongst the flower arrangement in the middle of the table. It took all his power to keep the grin off his face.

“You’re going to be the embarrassing drunk, aren’t you?” said Tony, keeping Clint’s attention away from Martin so that he could pull his hand back unnoticed.

“Yup,” said Clint, with satisfaction. “There’s got to be at least one, right?”

“My money was on Logan,” said Tony, glancing around to where Logan was at the edge of the helipad, glowering at the crowd and smoking a cigar.

“Nah,” said Clint. “I’m away better at embarrassing than he is.” He swigged from his glass. “Just watch. I bet I end up pulling out some stupid circus stunt.”

“Oh god,” said Martin. Clint’s grin just grew wider.

“Martin! Oh, Martin,” said Wendy, heading over to them. “Oh, you looked so lovely, that’s such a nice suit.” She pulled him into a hug that meant Tony lost his grip on Martin’s hand. “You look so much like your father.”

Martin looked touched as he returned the hug. Tony took a moment to be really fucking grateful that no one had said the same to him today, even if he had a feeling it was probably true.

“You know he’d be so proud of you, don’t you?” said Wendy.

Martin ducked his head. “Yeah,” he said, but he didn’t sound certain which, just, no. Surely any guy would be overjoyed to have Martin as his son? It might even be enough to make up for having Simon as a son as well.

Wendy put her hand on Martin’s face. “He would be,” she said. “Of course he would, darling.” She glanced at Tony. “Even if it’s not quite what we might have pictured for you, the important thing is that you’re happy.”

“I am happy,” said Martin, sounding a bit choked, and wow, Tony had to glance away or he was going to get choked too, and that just was not happening.

****

They mingled for a bit, then they cut the cake, then the photographer came back and forced them to awkwardly stand in place while every possible combination of their friends and family cycled in and out around them. By the time they were finally allowed to sit down for dinner, Tony was counting the hours until they were allowed to escape. He wanted to get his Spitfire alone, preferably in a bed.

They started the speeches after dinner, while the staff cleared away all traces of the meal and the band started to set up in the corner.

Douglas got up first. “Good evening,” he said, once a hush had fallen. “For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Douglas Richardson and, I just want to make this very clear as there seemed to have been some confusion earlier, I am not standing in for the Father of the Bride. I’m the current Best Man in Martin's giddy kaleidoscope of Best Men. I should be the last one, but, given his habitual indecisiveness, it may be best to prepare for a fourth one to suddenly appear on the horizon.”

“I guess that depends how good your speech is,” called Tony, wrapping an arm around Martin’s shoulders. Douglas sent him a glare as the rest of the audience sniggered.

“If you could manage five minutes in a row without needing to hear the sound of your own voice, you’d find out,” said Douglas, which brought a slightly louder wave of laughter. Tony just grinned and gestured for him to go on.

“I was Martin’s First Officer for more years than I care to think about,” said Douglas, “which means two things that have relevance to this wedding. The first is that I have spent many, many hours alone in a tiny space with him and so am perhaps the person best suited to giving Tony advice on how to manage many happy years with him. This would probably boil down to three main points: always make sure there’s a constant supply of coffee, don’t play too many games that rely on luck and whatever you do, don’t ever suggest infringing any CAA rules or regulations. I’m sure that Tony’s antics as Iron Man won’t have any impact on that last one.”

There was more laughter at that, and Tony heard Martin mutter, “Doesn’t count. Iron Man isn’t a plane, it’s a personalised recreational prosthesis.”

Tony cracked up at that, because he’d been wondering for years how exactly Martin managed to square away what Tony got up to in his suit with his love of aviation regulations. His arm tightened around Martin and he had to lean in for another kiss. God, he loved this man. This man he was married to. A shiver of glee went through him.

“The second thing about having been Martin’s First Officer is that I was the only other person present when they first met,” continued Douglas. “If you’ve been wondering exactly how that was, I can confirm that there was exactly as much conversation about aviation as you’re probably imagining, perhaps a bit more. Certainly there was more talk of winglets than is usual when flirting.”

Tony snorted. “Not in your flirting,” he murmured to Martin, who sent him a smile. It made his eyes shine, and Tony couldn’t stop staring at him, reflecting the happiness back.

“I will say, though, that I’ve rarely seen two people have such an immediate spark. It was obvious within minutes that they had a lot more in common than I think either of them expected, and that they only had eyes for each other. I don’t believe I've ever felt so invisible in a room. And I can see that hasn’t changed, even when I’m giving a toast at their wedding and might expect perhaps a little of their attention.”

Tony and Martin tore their eyes away from each other to look at Douglas, who just rolled his eyes and raised his glass.

“To Martin and Tony, and the mutual love of winglets that brought them together.”

Tony had to let go of Martin to raise his glass as the rest of the room toasted them. There was a round of applause as Douglas sat down and Rhodey stood up.

“Alright, well, I don’t think I need to start with a disclaimer that I’m not the Father of the Bride either, but I will if anyone is confused,” he started, then glanced around the room with raised eyebrows.

“Wait what?” asked Clint, with faked shock. “What do you mean you're not Tony's dad? Every time you come over, you start by lecturing him on his reckless behaviour!”

Rhodey winced. “Yeah, well, let's be honest here; so do half the rest of the people in his life.” He gave Steve a significant look.

“I'm not playing Father of the Bride either,” said Steve. “Even if I am the only one at the top table who's the right generation.”

Rhodey snorted and turned back to his speech notes, to Tony's great relief. “I’ve known Tony Stark for what is now a long enough time for me to worry about my sanity, right back to his days at MIT when most of campus were concerned that he was going to be the cause of the next big extinction event.”

“Some of us are still concerned about that,” called Bruce. Tony did his best to look like a maligned innocent.

Rhodey sent him a look that meant he was fooling no one. “At any rate, I’ve definitely known him long enough to have a list as long as my arm of the traditional embarrassing anecdotes that a Best Man’s speech should contain. Tony’s life has always been in the spotlight though, so pretty much all of them have been spread all over enough of the internet that they wouldn’t be new to anyone here.”

Except, hopefully, Martin’s mom. Oh man, please don’t let her know about the thing in Hawaii. Or the incident with the monkey.

“Those stories, though, aren’t why I’m friends with him and aren’t why Martin’s marrying him,” carried on Rhodey. “It’s the things he does that he keeps quiet about, the huge amount he always did for charity under the cover of the flash of a celebrity lifestyle, the commitment he’s shown to helping protect everyone, both with the Avengers and on his own as Iron Man, even the simple fact that if you’re his friend and you need something, he’ll move heaven and earth for you to get it, and then pretend he doesn’t have a clue what you’re talking about when you try to thank him.”

Oh man, Tony would have been so much happier with Rhodey pulling out even the very worst of the anecdotes he had at his fingertips. He could feel his face warming up and he wanted to just get up and hide in another room. Martin’s hand was lying loosely on his thigh though, keeping him in place.

“Those things are exactly why Martin is such a lucky guy and I know he’s just as aware of that and appreciates Tony just exactly as much as he deserves. So, everyone, I’d like to toast Tony and Martin, and their future happiness together. I don’t think you’re going to have any problems finding it.”

There was a chorus of voices and raised glasses, and Tony did his best to get his game face back by glaring at Rhodey. Rhodey just grinned at him and mouthed, _You’re welcome_.

Martin stood up next, and gave the crowd a terrified smile. His fingers were clutching his note cards so tightly that Tony could see his knuckles going white.

“Um,” he started, then glanced down at his notes. “I’m not very good at speeches, so please just, bear with me.” Tony couldn’t stop himself from reaching out and wrapping his hand around Martin’s leg, behind the table where no one could see.

Martin had spent a lot of time going backwards and forwards on whether or not he wanted to give a speech before he’d finally made the decision. Once he had, he spent hours crouched over his cue cards writing it. From where Tony was sitting, he could see that the whole speech was written out, along with notes saying things like _smile here_ and _make eye contact with at least three people before the next sentence_.

“In fact, I’m not very good at most things,” said Martin. “It’s sort of my thing. But, um, I’m used to it now, and I’ve got used to having to try very hard just to be sort of adequate at things.” He waved his stack of cards. “Like writing hundreds of note cards for this, when we all know Tony’s about to stand up and give a great speech that he won’t have planned at all.” He glanced down at Tony with a smile. “I’m hoping it doesn’t involve explosions, but you can never be too sure with him.”

That earned him a laugh, and some of the tension bled out of his shoulders.

“It came as a bit of surprise to me, then, when it turned out that being with Tony was something I was good at, and which was really easy.” He looked down at his notes and shuffled them. “Um, yes. Really easy.”

Tony tightened his grip on Martin’s leg, then stroked his hand down over his knee. The warm glow of happiness that had settled in his chest once they’d got their vows out and their signatures on the certificate just kept getting larger.

Martin found the card that he’d been looking for and looked back up at the room. “Um, and whenever we hit a little snag, there was always one of our friends to help us out with it, so, um I wanted to propose a toast—”

There was a moment of intense panic on his face when he realised he wasn’t holding his glass, followed by some desperate shuffling as he tried to have enough hands for his cards and the glass. Tony wasn’t sure he’d ever loved him more.

“Okay, yes, a toast,” said Martin, “to, uh, to all our family and friends, who have supported us and helped us and, um, not mocked us too loudly, and who have come here today to celebrate with us. And, uh, stayed around despite the evil robot attack.”

There was a cheer and chorus of people toasting. Martin took a gulp from his glass then collapsed back into his chair as if his strings had been cut. Tony leaned in and kissed his cheek.

“You were perfect,” he said, quietly, then stood up for his own speech. “Okay, I feel like this is now going to be really disappointing for everyone, because I actually haven’t planned any explosions,” he said. “I mean, that doesn’t mean there won’t be any, sometimes shit just blows up around me.”

“We noticed,” called Rhodey, glancing pointedly at the broken windows. There was a ripple of laughter.

“Yeah, yeah,” said Tony. “Not my fault that this is such a hot event that people get serious about gatecrashing it.”

He lifted his glass. “Okay, so, Martin’s thanked all of you for being here for us, but there was a handful of people that we just wanted to single out as going above and beyond. First comes family, to Martin’s mother and siblings, and nephews, and to my own, slightly less conventional but just as important family, Pepper and Rhodey.”

He raised his glass and met Pepper’s eyes as to the room toasted, “To family!” She raised one eyebrow back, but Tony could see she was touched. Excellent, hopefully that meant she’d keep the bitching about how she’d organised a massive wedding and then he’d let a super-villain trash it to a minimum.

“As for our friends, I’d like to particularly single out Natasha and Clint, for going above and beyond on bodyguard detail and making damn sure we actually got to this point in one piece, even if it meant taking a taser bolt for the team.”

Clint cheered at that, but Tony had been watching his alcohol intake and he was pretty sure he’d cheer any mention of his name at this point. Everyone else toasted and Clint beamed happily around the room while Natasha noticeably fought to keep from rolling her eyes.

“And the good news for you guys is that that’s the end of the speeches, so we can get on to the proper business of partying,” said Tony, which also earned a cheer from Clint. “We’re going to start up the music in a minute, and I’m pretty sure more drinks are going to be coming out soon, so definitely take advantage of that, unless you’re Clint, in which case someone get him some water.”

“Spoilsport!” called Clint as Tony sat back down.

Martin reached for his hand and gave it a squeeze.

“Just the first dance to go, then we’ve jumped through all the wedding hoops,” said Tony.

“Right,” said Martin, and took a deep breath. “And we’ve sort of done that together before.”

“Exactly,” said Tony, and leaned in for another kiss from his husband.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there we are. Five years and 240,000 words after the initial silly one-shot, I've got these boys married. In some ways, this is the end of the 'verse, but I do have another two fics already written that should be up by the end of January. After that, I don't expect there to be any more.
> 
> I just wanted to say that I've really appreciated all the enthusiasm people have shown over this pairing, with a special mention of Lunchee's [podfics](http://archiveofourown.org/series/244141) and Rabidsamfan's [fanfic](http://archiveofourown.org/series/101282), and all the people who have joined in with the various discussions on Twitter and real life about all the many decisions I've farmed out to the fangirl hivemind.


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